Republic of Mining

K+S opens west coast terminal to ship potash from Legacy mine (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – August 28, 2017)

August 29, 2017

Just over a year after its new $4.1-billion Legacy mine began producing potash, K+S Potash Canada has opened the west coast facility that will allow it to ship potassium-laced salts extracted in Saskatchewan to customers in Asia and South America.

The Port Moody, B.C. storage and handling facility is the product of a 2014 agreement between K+S Potash Canada (KSPC) — a subsidiary of the Kassel, Germany-based K+S Group — and Pacific Coast Terminals Co. Ltd. (PCT).

According to the Saskatoon-based potash miner, the deal resulted in modifications of PCT’s existing facility and the construction of a new storage building capable of holding 160,000 tonnes of potash. The solution mine can produce up to 2.86 million tonnes per year.

[Australia Mining] Jobs bonanza in wake of granting of bauxite mine leases (North Queensland Register – August 29, 2017)

August 29, 2017

http://www.northqueenslandregister.com.au/

Hundreds of jobs in Far North Queensland are closer after the Palaszczuk government this week granted three mining leases for the Bauxite Hills Mine project to operator Metro Mining.

Natural Resources and Mines Minister, Anthony Lynham said the granted leases were critical for the $35.8 million bauxite mine project to proceed into planned production.

“Granting these leases allows Metro Mining to consolidate and unlock the potential of the significant bauxite reserve that exists on the western Cape York Peninsula, and generate hundreds of jobs for the region” Dr Lynham said. The three granted leases are part of Metro Mining’s Bauxite Hills Mine project. The project in total is estimated to have a resource of 144.8 million tonnes of bauxite.

Water woes may leave green-car hopes high and dry – by Antony Currie (Reuters/Nasdaq.com – August 28, 2017)

August 29, 2017

http://www.nasdaq.com/

NEW YORK, Aug 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Water problems could leave the burgeoning market for green cars high and dry. Ford is the latest to ramp up its electrification efforts with a planned joint venture with China’s Anhui. Trouble is, the industry relies heavily on the Democratic Republic of Congo for cobalt to make electric vehicles’ lithium-ion batteries.

Players like BHP Billiton need secure water supplies for their cobalt-mining operations. They also are big consumers of electricity, which is produced mostly by hydropower. With the Congo River running near 100-year lows after two years of drought, blackouts are a big risk.

Wastewater – the theme of the World Water Week conference that kicked off in Sweden on Sunday – is another problem. Adding untreated industrial sludge back into the river basin would make a bad situation worse: the majority of Congolese already lack access to safe drinking water.

Gold price leaps to 10-month high – by Frik Els (Mining.com – August 28, 2017)

August 28, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

Heavy buying saw the price of gold jump on Monday reverting to levels last seen before Donald Trump’s election as the dollar weakens and hopes for faster economic growth in the world’s largest economy begin to fade.

Gold for delivery in December, the most active contract on the Comex market in New York with nearly 30m ounces traded by early afternoon, was exchanging hands for $1,317.10 an ounce. That a 1.5% gain from Friday’s close and brings gold’s year-to-date gains to over 14% or $165 an ounce.

Gold is now at its the highest since the beginning of November. The metal touched a high of $1,338 on election night when results showed a likely Trump victory, but the rally in record volumes for the Comex market, soon evaporated and by mid-December gold was languishing at $1,150.

Ontario Premier Wynne cut “backroom” Ring of Fire deals: Chief – by Jorge Barrera (APTN National News – August 25, 2017)

August 28, 2017

http://aptnnews.ca/

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne cut a side deal with three Ring of Fire First Nations after her negotiators failed to force through a wider agreement with other communities involved in long-running talks on the future of the chromite and nickel-rich region in the James Bay lowlands of Treaty 9 territory, according to Neskantaga Chief Wayne Moonias.

Moonias, whose community is one of nine First Nations involved in negotiations on the Ring of Fire development in northern Ontario, said he received notice through an email late last week that the province wanted to sign an agreement with all nine First Nations on jurisdiction this past Tuesday. Provincial officials did not provide the text of the proposed accord until they were pushed to cough up a copy, he said.

The text of the agreement was vague on planned legislative and regulatory changes to guarantee First Nation input and involvement in the Ring of Fire development, but it offered concrete timelines on construction of roads and the development of a mine by Noront Resources Ltd., said Moonias.

Riding the National Dream becomes nightmarish – by Greg Gormick (Northern Ontario Business – August 28, 2017)

August 28, 2017

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Greg Gormick is a Toronto transportation writer and policy adviser. His clients have included CP, CN, VIA and numerous elected officials and government transportation agencies.

To paraphrase a 1978 comedy-mystery film, “Who is killing the great trains of Canada?” The cast of characters is lengthy. Start with Liberal and Conservative governments, which have seen no value in a modern rail passenger system since VIA Rail was launched the same year as that movie.

Cue the fresh-faced Ottawa policy advisers whose credentials include rail-relevant work in cosmetics marketing; I kid you not. Add a dash of hostility by airlines and bus lines that want VIA’s subsidy diverted to their accounts. But there is no question who is slowly euthanizing the greatest of all Canadian passenger trains, the world-renowned Canadian on the Toronto-Sudbury-Vancouver route. It’s former Crown corporation Canadian National (CN).

Since it was privatized in 1995, CN has been extending the length of its freight trains, but not keeping pace by extending the sidings where opposing trains can “meet” each other or slower ones can be overtaken by faster ones, such as the Canadian. As a result, many CN employees now joke about the Canadian owning those short sidings.

Essar restructuring delaying Ring of Fire smelter decision – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 25, 2017)

August 28, 2017

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Noront boss waits on CCAA resolution to determine if Sault stays in the mix

The head of Noront Resources wants to see how the restructuring process at Essar Steel Algoma shakes out before deciding whether or not to drop Sault Ste. Marie as a location for a Ring of Fire ferrochrome smelter.

The Sault is one of four Northern Ontario cities that Noront president-CEO Alan Coutts and his team are considering for a furnace operation to process chromite into ferrochrome, which is used in stainless steel manufacturing.

The mining company had hoped to make an announcement by the end of this summer, but the ongoing CCAA process (Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act) with the Sault steelmaker is dragging out Noront’s decision. “There is some complexity around the CCAA process in the Sault and we’d like to really understand that and see some outcomes before committing or dismissing that site,” said Coutts.

Battle for Northern Ontario raging 9 months before provincial election – by Robert Benzie (Toronto Star – August 26, 2017)

August 28, 2017

https://www.thestar.com/

The next provincial election is more than nine months away, but the battle for Northern Ontario is already raging. Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, making his 27th trip to the region since taking his party’s helm in May 2015, gathered his caucus in Timmins this week to underscore that “the North matters.”

Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne spent most of the week visiting remote parts of Northern Ontario, including First Nations, to tout her government’s latest efforts to kick-start the stalled Ring of Fire chromite mining project. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, whose party holds most of the seats there, has also kept the north on the front-burner in this final summer before the election, which will be June 7.

“Let’s face it: Northern Ontario has been ignored by the Wynne Liberals for far too long,” Brown, whose party leads the Liberals in most public-opinion surveys, told his caucus mates Friday. “They have left hardworking Northern Ontario families paying more and getting less,” he said, speaking from a podium emblazoned with a sign reading “A Voice for the North.”

Interpreting Trump’s not-so-subtle threat to India to do more in Afghanistan – by Rajrishi Singhal (Quartz India – August 27, 2017)

August 28, 2017

https://qz.com/

The India-US relationship has conventionally been undergirded by commonly shared democratic traditions, despite periodic upheavals. Thanks to president Donald Trump, this is likely to change soon and acquire a transactional shade based on quid pro quo, where acknowledgement is contingent on favours extended.

This was evident when Trump unveiled his long overdue strategy for Afghanistan, a nettlesome issue that’s remained unresolved through the last four presidencies to now bedevil a fifth one. Apart from his trademark bluster and rhetoric, Trump’s speech revealed two distinct strands: a deal-based approach to achieving strategic objectives, and, a marked candour that separates his speech from the studied diplomatese of past presidents.

Obviously, no speech on Afghanistan and South Asia can ignore India. But, Trump’s hat-tip to India and its critical role in maintaining regional stability has acquired a new binary, apart from a foreboding tenor: “We appreciate India’s important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.”

The dam debate: PolyMet tailings basin dams are key point in upcoming permits – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – August 28, 2017)

August 28, 2017

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

HOYT LAKES — Of the bad things that could happen once PolyMet starts running Minnesota’s first-ever copper mine, critics say, among the worst would be a catastrophic breach of the tailings basin dam.

A hulking, man-made earthen dike that will stretch for miles and reach 252 feet high when finished, the dam will hold back millions of gallons of water mixed in a slurry with finely ground rock left over after crushing and processing — after the copper, nickel and other valuable metals are extracted.

Much of that waste rock will be as small as grains of beach sand. In theory, the stuff will settle into the basin, and as more is pumped in, the dams will be raised in steps, 20 feet at a time, over the 20-year life of the mine.

Copper Industry, Environmentalists Battle Over US Monuments (U.S. News – August 27, 2017)

August 28, 2017

https://www.usnews.com/

Associated Press – TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona’s copper industry, environmentalists and recreation groups are fighting over the future of three national monuments in the state.

As the U.S. Interior Department reviews the size of 21 national monuments across the country, the multinational mining company Asarco is asking that more than 11,000 acres be pulled from the 129,000-acre Ironwood Forest National Monument northwest of Tucson so it can mine more copper there, next to the company’s Silver Bell copper mine, the Arizona Daily Star reports (http://bit.ly/2wErswa .)

Asarco say its needs use of the 11,000 acres because it’s unable to make economic use of 880 acres it owns and 4,050 federally owned acres on which it has filed mining claims within monument boundaries.

Philippine lawmakers seek to ban mining in watershed areas, export of raw ore – by Manolo Serapio Jr (Reuters U.S. – August 25, 2017)

August 28, 2017

https://www.reuters.com/

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine lawmakers have filed a bill seeking to ban mining in watershed areas and exports of unprocessed ores and will require miners to get legislative approval before operating, in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s pledge to overhaul the sector.

The Philippines is the world’s top nickel ore supplier but Duterte says miners pay too little tax and not enough to compensate mining communities that suffer environmental damage.

“The challenge for government is to ensure proceeds translate into sustainable development, environmental protection, and greater transparency and accountability in the mining industry,” according to the bill authored by 22 congressmen led by Pantaleon Alvarez, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a strong ally of Duterte.

Coal’s comeback – by Hoppy Kercheval (Metro News: Voice of West Virginia – August 25, 2017)

August 28, 2017

Home

The anti-coal movement and its advocates in the previous administration in Washington tried their best to snuff out the industry and, in the process, ruin the livelihoods of miners and destroy communities. President Obama’s executive orders and his EPA’s regulatory stranglehold nearly brought coal to its knees.

When confronted with allegations of their “war on coal,” the response was that market conditions and competition from abundant, clean burning natural gas were actually the reasons. Clearly, the gas boom has been a huge factor, but a funny thing has happened since Obama left office and the regulatory boot has been lifted off of coal’s throat—it’s coming back.

The National Mining Association reports, “From the 2nd quarter of 2016 to the same period this year, coal production rose almost 17 percent.” The biggest jump has been in the production of steel-making metallurgical coal from Central Appalachia, where 57 mines have opened (or reopened) in the last fiscal year.

Brown critiques Wynne on Ring of Fire – by Emma Meldrum (Timmins Daily Press – August 28, 2017)

August 28, 2017

http://www.timminspress.com/

The Ontario Progressive Conservative leader spoke to the press from Cedar Meadows Resort & Spa on Friday. He suggested that Liberal leader Wynne address Ontario’s opioid crisis with an awareness campaign.

“Today, I want to announce here in Timmins that our Ontario PC caucus will introduce a bill calling for the Liberal government to invest at least ten per cent of their advertising budget this year into an opioid awareness campaign, and they should do this immediately,” he said.

Brown said government ads have skyrocketed, with $57 million being spent in this fiscal year. “They’re using taxpayer dollars to campaign, and the real purpose of government advertising is for a public good, and understanding this is a crisis where we need an education campaign. There’s a lack of understanding and awareness.”

Nunavut government, Kitikmeot Inuit move ahead on ambitious road-port – by Jim Bell Nunatsiaq News – August 25, 2017)

August 25, 2017

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Despite no firm funding, no firm users, Grays Bay enters environmental screening

Though there’s no firm guarantee that anyone will use it and no firm guarantee the federal government will put up the cash to pay for it, the ambitious Grays Bay Road and Port Project in western Nunavut will now undergo an environmental screening by the Nunavut Impact Review Board, the project’s backers announced Aug. 24.

The Government of Nunavut and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association teamed up in 2016 to push for the Grays Bay scheme after the Chinese-owned mining firm MMG Canada said their lucrative base metal deposits aren’t viable without a road and port that are too costly for the company to build and run on its own.

In the first phase of Grays Bay, the GN and KIA would build a deepwater port at Coronation Gulf on the Arctic Ocean and a 230-kilometre all-season road between the port and the site of the abandoned Jericho diamond mine. (See map at the bottom of this page.) About 10 to 20 permanent staff would be located at the port site and up to three permanent staff would be located at Jericho. Road and port maintenance costs would amount to around $3 million a year.