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Space mining in 10,9,8… – by Kate Smith (ECU Daily – October 2, 2017)

https://www.ecudaily.com.au/

Space experts, academics and government officials attended the third Off-Earth Mining Forum at the University of New South Wales in Sydney last week. Head researchers on space mining from around the world gathered to discuss the future of mining and colonisation Off-Earth.

According to Associate Professor Serkan Saydam who is the Research Director at UNSW’s School of Mining Engineering, living in space is closer than we imagine.

“According to some commercial space mining companies this operation (mining) can happen in the next 10 years. This achievement will definitely trigger the colonisation on the Moon and Mars. Although estimating the time frame is directly dependent on the research conducted in the related areas, we can also say that colonisation on the Moon and Mars can happen in the next 50 years.”

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Peru’s Dream of Usurping Chile as Copper King Faces Roadblocks – by Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – October 3, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The biggest obstacle to Peru’s dream of some day supplanting Chile as the world’s largest copper producer may be Peru itself.

Despite higher-grade ores and lower mining costs than neighboring Chile, the Peruvian government says the country’s potential in copper is being restricted by too much bureaucracy. Mine owners also complain about weak infrastructure and strong opposition to projects from people who fear increased environmental risks and disruption to their communities.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who was elected last year, is pushing expansion of the mining industry as a key to stimulating growth and reducing poverty. His government wants to exploit ore reserves that are the third-largest in the world. While copper output has been rising in the past two years, it remains well below the amount produced in Chile.

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White River benefits from new Harte Gold mine – by Jeff Walters (CBC News Thunder Bay – October 03, 2017)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

200 jobs may be created in 800 person community

A complete 180-degree turn would be the best way to describe the economy of White River, Ont. A decade ago, the local sawmill was closed, and the future of the community looked bleak.

Now, in 2017, hundreds of new jobs are slated to come to the community of 800 people along Highway 17 in northwestern Ontario. In fact, there is even a labour shortage in the small community. “Seeing the mine that was being prospected for years slowly come into development is great news for White River, it’s brought a lot of new jobs, and stimulated our economy, so it’s all good news,” said Angelo Bazzoni, the Mayor of White River.

“White River is a robust little community, and when it falls flat on its face, we get together, we rebuild it. This is what we’ve always wanted to do, and it’s working out great for us.”

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Indigenous leader urges partnerships to reap development rewards – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – October 3, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Any resource development that takes place in the Far North needs to happen with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people providing input and working together, said Jonathan Solomon, grand chief of the Mushkegowuk Council. That’s the message he brought as a keynote speaker to State of the North, the annual conference hosted by the Northern Policy Institute, held Sept. 27 to 29 in Timmins.

“As we talk about the state of the North, the First Nations that I represent have to be part of any movement as we move forward so we can say that we did it,” he said. “We did it in unison, working together; that’s very important.”

Solomon leads a tribal council that represents seven member communities, including Attawapiskat First Nation, Chapleau Cree, Fort Albany First Nation, Kashechewan First Nation, Missanabie Cree, Moose Cree First Nation, and Taykwa Tagamou First Nation (formerly New Post).

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Tanzania edges towards total mine nationalization – by Sebastian Spio-Garbrah and Mark Willms (DaMina Advisors – October 2017)

www.daminaadvisors.com

Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, JD, Chief Frontier Markets Analyst; with Mark Willms, LLB, LLM, Co-Head DaMina Advisors. DaMina Advisors is a preeminent Africa-focused independent frontier markets risk research, due diligence and Africa M&A transactions consulting and strategic advisory firm.

Tanzania is edging closer and closer to a total nationalization of the country’s mining sector. The spirit of recent laws passed by the Parliament of Tanzania signals that the ongoing disputes between the government of Tanzania and foreign mining companies is moving towards nationalization and the non-enforcement of any international arbitration awards in local Tanzanian courts.

The textual essence of these new laws revolve around the notion that Tanzania’s domestic law is to be supreme over any international dispute or arbitration decision, as Tanzanian sovereignty is considered to be of utmost importance. The laws also take retroactive effect on existing mining contracts.

There are many provisions in the new laws that express the government’s statist anti-foreign investor bias.

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Imperial Metals Investors Are Counting on Another Billionaire Rescue – by Allison McNeely (Bloomberg News – October 2, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Has billionaire Murray Edwards stepped in to prop up a troubled Canadian copper miner once more? That’s what investors and analysts are wondering after Imperial Metals Corp. won a second reprieve on its loans until Oct. 13 while bankers review a new financial rescue plan.

Edwards, the company’s largest shareholder who has been involved since 1994, has previously helped bail out Imperial Metals by injecting capital, making a loan and guaranteeing a credit line.

Imperial’s shares and bonds have slumped amid uncertainty as to whether Edwards, and money manager Bruce Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital Management, the largest bondholder, would step in with additional financing. The Vancouver-based company fed those concerns last month when it disclosed lenders had to grant a waiver to avert default, and warned there’s doubt Imperial can survive without more financing or a debt extension.

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‘Material, newsworthy’ diamond finds on the rise – analyst – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – October 3, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – There has been a marked increase in the number of publicly reported special diamond finds in recent years, with 61 of 66 press-released diamond finds in the last nine years taking place in the last five years, noted independent diamond industry analyst and consultant Paul Zimnisky in a new report published Monday.

The New York-based analyst dissected available press releases over the last nine years, looking for diamond producers reporting finds considered “special enough” that the company that discovered them subsequently issued a press release to announce the occasion.

For publicly traded companies, securities laws generally require notifying the public when a ‘material’ event occurs. “In this case ‘material’ typically means information that will have an impact on the company’s stock price, or the announcement will likely change the perceived value of the company’s stock.

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Surging U.S. Dollar Sinks Gold, Silver Prices – by Jim Wyckoff (Kitco News – October 2, 2017)

http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Gold prices ended the U.S. day session down and hit a six-week low Monday. Silver prices were just slightly lower but dropped to a seven-week low early on today. The appreciating U.S. dollar on the foreign exchange market and little risk aversion in the marketplace at present are bearish elements for the gold and silver markets. December Comex gold was last down $8.10 an ounce at $1,276.60. December Comex silver prices were last down $0.011 at $16.665 an ounce.

It was a very somber mood among U.S. traders and investors Monday. A shooting spree in Las Vegas late Sunday that left over 50 people dead and over 500 wounded was the worst shooting spree in modern U.S. history. The attack is not believed to be a terrorist event and did not impact the markets.

World stock markets were mostly firmer Monday. U.S. stock indexes were mixed in early afternoon trading. The S&P 500 index scored another record high Monday, to accentuate the upbeat trader/investor risk attitudes at present.

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A Labor of Love: Coal mining continues despite unsettling trends – by Heather Richards (Casper Star Tribune – September 30, 2017)

http://trib.com/

POWDER RIVER BASIN — Standing ankle deep in a hill of powdery clay, chunks of rock and waste coal, Patrick “Rooster” Baumann, senior project manager for Cloud Peak Energy, can just make out equipment sitting on a ridge outside the boundaries of Antelope Mine near Wright. He’s staring northeast, at the edge of the largest coal mine in the country, North Antelope Rochelle.

Beyond North Antelope lies the second largest surface mine in the U.S., Black Thunder. Invisible on a horizon of gray and beige, are 10 more mines. This is the heart of the U.S. coal industry, which provides fuel for about 30 percent of the country’s electricity.

On a recent September morning, Baumann watched as miners he oversees drilled holes packed with fertilizer that when mixed with diesel will turn into mini bombs. They will go off like a string of firecrackers beneath the soil, breaking it up so diggers can easily shovel away the loosened ground exposing coal seams beneath.

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Copper project in Florence wins appeal, could break ground this winter – by Isaac Windes (Arizona Daily Star/Cronkite News – September 29, 2017)

http://tucson.com/

WASHINGTON — Florence Copper officials could break ground on a $24 million “in-situ” copper mining facility by December, after an administrative appeals board last week turned down objections to the project from the Town of Florence and another opponent.

The ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board rejected challenges that the in-situ form of mining — which injects acidic water into copper ore deep underground to draw it out and refine it — could pose a threat to the area’s drinking water.

An attorney for the town said in an email that Florence officials were disappointed with the ruling, which they fear leaves the water supply at risk of pollution, “a condition that is not acceptable to the town.” She said the town is reviewing legal options. But officials with the mining company welcomed the decision, which capped a six-year permitting process.

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Could more autonomy hurt the north? One expert says yes – by Frank Giorno (Timmins Today – September 28, 2017)

https://www.timminstoday.com/

“For example, Manitoba established a university in its north in the 19th
Century, but in Ontario it took until the 1960s to start up a Northern
university. The decision was made in Queen’s Park,” said Robinson. “Queen’s
Park is keeping the University of Toronto’s mining school when it could be
more successful in northern Ontario.”

Robinson spoke about the success of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and
Services Association (SAMSSA) in promoting northern Ontario mining and
how Queen’s Park disagreed with its development.

TIMMINS — Striving for greater autonomy for northern Ontario comes with risk, says an expert who spoke at a conference on the state of the region. Devolved jurisdictions like Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland have not succeeded as proponents expected, said David MacKinnon, a former senior civil servant with the Ontario government’s Ministry of Finance who has also worked in Nova Scotia.

“The question to ask is whether devolution of power will lead to improved governance, or perhaps the opposite,” MacKinnon told conference-goers at a two-day conference held in Timmins by the Northern Policy Insitutute. “Devolution does have serious risks in my view.”

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Norman B. Keevil book reveals tactics of 1970s B.C. flirtation with resource nationalism – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – September 29, 2017)

http://resourceclips.com/

The year was 1973. No sooner had Teck Resources transplanted its HQ to Vancouver than British Columbia premier W.A.C. Bennett’s 20-year reign fell to defeat at NDP hands. Resource nationalism proved to be one of new premier Dave Barrett’s earliest enthusiasms. But the guy who bragged about his commitment to doing “what was needed and right” showed a peculiar modus operandi.

That’s just one of the stories related by Norman B. Keevil in a history of Teck to be released next week, Never Rest on your Ores: Building a Mining Company, One Stone at a Time. Keevil relates that on summoning him and Bob Hallbauer into the premier’s Victoria office, Barrett’s first words were, “I want your coal.”

Interest had been growing in northeastern B.C.’s deposits, among them Teck’s Sukunka. “Well, at least he did call it our coal,” Keevil notes. “That would become questionable as the situation evolved.” The duo declined but Barrett wouldn’t give up. He kept calling them back to Victoria on an almost weekly basis.

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US Mining Giant Takes on Indonesian Government over Mine Divestiture (Asia Sentinel – September 30, 2017)

https://www.asiasentinel.com/

Freeport McMoRan refuses to go along with Jakarta’s takeover plan

Freeport-McMoRan Inc, the US-based mining giant, has come out swinging publicly against plans by the Indonesian government to take over a controlling interest in its Grasberg Mine, the world’s largest gold mine and the second largest copper mine, located on high on the side of a remote mountain in the province of Papua.

The Phoenix, Arizona company owns 90.64 percent of PT Freeport Indonesia, the principal operating subsidiary. The Indonesian government currently owns the remaining 9.36 percent.

In a Sept. 28 letter to the secretary general of Indonesia’s finance ministry, Rick Adkerson, Freeport’s chief executive, said the company, which has operated the mine since 1972, “has worked to be responsive to the government’s aspirations for 51 percent ownership but has been consistently clear that the divestment is conditional upon the transactions reflecting fair value of the business through 2041 and that Freeport retain management and governance control. These are non-negotiable positions.”

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Trump and the end of Obama’s bitter ‘war on coal’ – by Sterling Burnett (The Hil – September 30, 2017)

http://thehill.com/

Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is a research fellow on energy and the environment at The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

What a difference presidential leadership can make, for good or ill, for an industry’s fortunes. Before he was elected president, Barack Obama promised to bankrupt coal companies, and after eight years of his administration’s anti-energy policies, that pledge turned out to be one of the few promises he kept.

Obama imposed regulations limiting coal mining near streams and on mountain tops, allowed cities to block the expansion of coal export terminals and rail lines, and enacted limits on carbon-dioxide emissions, including many that were not justified by any reasonable calculation of human health benefits.

His policies contributed to massive job losses in coal country, the premature shuttering of vital coal-fired power plants, and were a factor in profitable coal companies being forced to file for bankruptcy.

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Deep sea mining – by Elaine Maslin (Offshore Engineer – October 1, 2017)

http://www.oedigital.com/

Many are looking to a new resource, deep sea minerals, thanks to growth in demand from emerging economies and the development of new technologies that require increased supply of metals such as copper.

While interest in mining metals from the deeps has been ongoing since the 1960s, activity has remained low, due to low metal prices and the challenges of operating in deep sea environments. This activity is also the focus of strong local and environmental opposition.

Slowly, however, the pieces have been falling into place to permit this activity. In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) established the International Seabed Authority (ISA), based in Jamaica, to organize and regulate mineral-related activities in seabed areas beyond the limits of national jurisdictions.

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