Republic of Mining

Greenpeace is a menace to the world – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – June 24, 2017)

June 26, 2017

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The little town of Saint-Félicien, in Quebec’s lovely Saguenay region, is under siege. The softwood lumber wars have broken out again, and that’s bad news. … Then there’s Greenpeace. “Greenpeace wants our total death!” mayor Gilles Potvin complained back in 2013. “If we listen to them, we can’t cut wood any more.”

Greenpeace has been waging a relentless campaign against Resolute Forest Products, the largest forest company in the region and in Canada. (It is the successor company to Abitibi and Bowater.)

Greenpeace has branded Resolute as a “forest destroyer” that is risking a “caribou herd death spiral” and harming the region’s First Nations. It has vigorously lobbied Resolute’s customers – including the world’s biggest book publishers – to boycott its paper and print products.

Arsenic to be removed from Sudbury’s Long Lake – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – June 24, 2017)

June 26, 2017

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Residents of Long Lake will notice some extra activity around their shores in coming months — and next year, especially — but chances are they’ll welcome the temporary annoyance of noisy equipment over the lingering presence of a deadly poison.

A tender is going out this summer for reclamation work on the former Long Lake Gold site, which has been leaching arsenic into the southwest corner of the lake for years, with a contract to be awarded in the fall and the work apt to commence in earnest early in the new year.

Stephen Butcher, chair of Long Lake Stewardship, said it’s been a long wait for a remediation project to get the go-ahead but “we’re ecstatic it’s finally getting done.” It was Butcher’s stewardship group that first detected elevated levels of arsenic, which has been filtering down from old tailings deposits, through water testing done back in 2011.

Laurentian students making a name in mining – by Harley Davidson (Sudbury Star – June 24, 2017)

June 26, 2017

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Two St. Catharines natives are part of winning teams in this year’s MINED Open Innovation Challenge, offered by the Ontario Mining Association to mining and engineering students.

Adam Grinbergs and Sarah Bulanda, Laurentian University students, are members of the first and second place teams, respectively. The program tasked engineering students to come up with solutions to hypothetical mining problems.

Their case study presented them with the challenge of cooling down underground mines. Grinbergs’ team came up with a concept called Deep Water Cooling, in which cool water from the bottom of the Great Lakes is pumped into the mine and misted into the air. Grinbergs says the process of cooling deep mines is essential, with temperatures in mines rising an average of 1 degree Celsius per 100 metres depth.

NEWS RELEASE: Ontario Supporting Mining Innovation in Kenora (Ministry of Northern Development and Mines – June 26, 2017)

June 26, 2017

Province Boosting Economic Growth and Creating New Jobs in the North

Ontario is diversifying the Northern economy and helping create good new jobs for people in the North by supporting innovation at a mining company near Kenora.

The province is supporting Avalon Advanced Materials as it develops an innovative new process to make lithium-ion batteries from petalite mineral deposits in the Kenora area. This support, through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC), will allow the local mining company to test and demonstrate converting lithium mineral petalite into lithium hydroxide, a key component in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, which provide a rechargeable, sustainable and low-pollution source of energy storage.

This new production process will enable Avalon Advanced Materials to further diversify the economy of the region, continue to grow its business and create and maintain 14 new local jobs. Supporting mining innovation and good jobs in the North is part of our plan to create jobs, grow our economy, and help people in their everyday lives.

Hawthorne’s Cobalt letters – by Douglas Baldwin (CIM Magazine – February 2017)

June 26, 2017

http://magazine.cim.org/en/

Scheming brokers, including a famous author’s son, deceived many speculators during the Cobalt, Ontario silver rush

Two years after the 1903 discovery of rich silver deposits in northern Ontario, a Toronto brokerage firm asserted that “when you take into consideration that Cobalt’s mines have produced more in value than the Klondike is producing per annum, or has ever produced, you will have some idea of the great results that will come out of this camp when fully developed.”

Mining companies licensed to work in Ontario grew from 43 in 1903 to 683 four years later. For three consecutive days, mounted police in New York City cleared Broad Street of would-be investors who were obstructing traffic in their efforts to buy Cobalt shares from the curb brokers.

Stories of millions of dollars changing hands overnight were legion. The Canadian Annual Review recounted the tale of a North Bay resident who made $15,000 by merely picking up silver nuggets lying on the ground.

[B.C. Golden Triangle – Pretium Resources] In the Valley of the Kings – by Virginia Heffernan (CIM Magazine – April 18, 2016)

June 26, 2017

http://magazine.cim.org/en/

Up above the treeline in the mountains of northwestern B.C., Pretium Resources’ Brucejack project promises to add lustre to the province’s mining industry.

Cost overruns in the gold mining industry have become so commonplace that investors are justifiably wary of feasibility estimates. But the Brucejack project in British Columbia is trending in the opposite direction as construction progresses, shedding capital costs amid fiercely competitive conditions for equipment and contractors and favourable currency markets.

Since Vancouver-based Pretium Resources released a feasibility study for Brucejack in mid-2014, estimated capital costs for the project have dropped 14 per cent to US$641 million. That excludes the US$56 million in working capital set aside for startup in case gold receipts are delayed. The portion allocated to the underground mine fell 33 per cent to about US$101 million.

Pioneering Canadian system ensures conflict-free gold – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – June 26, 2017)

June 26, 2017

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Rigorously documenting exports from small-scale sites boosts miners’ revenue, gives buyers ethical certainty

The work is exhausting and dangerous. Under the harsh sun on the side of a Congolese mountain, men and women dig rocks from a crude pit, crush them with hammers and wash them in a muddy river, searching for tiny flakes of gold. For this gruelling labour, the hardscrabble miners earn an average of just 94 cents (U.S.) a day.

It’s a long journey from these mountain shafts to a boutique jeweller in downtown Toronto, where the rough nuggets are transformed into engagement rings and wedding bands. But under a new Canadian ethical-trade program, the mine workers will have a chance at a higher income. And consumers will have precise proof – for the first time – that their gold jewellery is free from the taint of war or corruption.

In late May, a passenger named Joanne Lebert carried an unusual item in her hand luggage on the lengthy flight from eastern Congo to Toronto. In a sealed bag inside a glass jar, she carried 238 grams of gold, purchased from small-scale mining sites near the remote town of Mambasa.

The world seeks Sudbury’s mining expertise – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – June 23, 2017)

June 23, 2017

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Export forum brings supply companies and international investors together to talk

With over a century of mining supply expertise in Sudbury, companies and nations are turning to this region to help them develop their mining sectors, particularly Mexico, South America and the American Southwest.

To make it easier to connect, Ontario’s North Economic Development Corporation (ONEDC) played host to the Northern Ontario Exports Forum 2017 on June 22. The forum at the Holiday Inn allowed mining service supply companies to meet and get a better idea on export marketing, strategic planning, and the sales landscape in their own backyard and beyond.

“It’s an opportunity for the supply and service for mining to look at export opportunities,” said forum chair Tom Palangio, president of WipWare, and the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Services Association.

A NEW YUKON GOLD PLAY – by James Kwantes (Resource Opportunities – June 21, 2017)

June 28, 2017June 23, 2017

A Message From the Editor

Subscribe to Resource Opportunities this month and use COUPON CODE JUNE to receive US$100 off regular subscription prices of $299 for 1 year and $449 for 2 years. That’s considerably less than the profit on one successful trade, making Resource Opportunities one of the best value propositions in the newsletter world. Our focus is actionable investment ideas with high speculative upside potential. Recent examples: ERD.T at 37.5c & SBB.T at 39c. Join us today and profit!

The Yukon is now one of the hottest jurisdictions globally for gold exploration. Goldcorp kicked things off in the spring of 2016 with its $520-million purchase of Kaminak Gold and the 5-million-ounce Coffee project. Since then Barrick, Newmont and Agnico Eagle have also entered through investments in Yukon projects.

As the Yukon’s largest claims holder, Strategic Metals is poised to capitalize on the upsurge in interest. But the company wasn’t getting much value in the market for some prime projects in the highly prospective Dawson Range gold belt. It is now.

Strategic packaged four of the properties — Eureka, Trident, Triple Crown and Treble — into a new company called Trifecta Gold, which began trading on the TSX Venture last Thursday with the symbol TG. The new exploration play has just 23.15 million shares outstanding and Strategic retains a 9.19 stake. The rest of the shares were distributed to Strategic shareholders, on the basis of 1 Trifecta share for every 4.5 Strategic shares.

Canada’s First Cobalt braves political risk to pile in to Congo – by Aaron Ross (Reuters U.S. – June 23, 2017)

June 23, 2017

https://www.reuters.com/

KINSHASA – With Western companies in Democratic Republic of Congo treading carefully in the face of political turbulence and a worsening business climate, Canada’s First Cobalt Corp is an unlikely newcomer to the central African nation’s mining scene.

Several of the Toronto-based firm’s workers are former employees of First Quantum Minerals, whose prized Kolwezi project was expropriated in 2010 in an episode that underscored the risks of investing in Congo. But for First Cobalt CEO Trent Mell, the logic of entering a country responsible for nearly two thirds of global cobalt output as the electric vehicle market booms is simple.

“The bottom line is: No DRC, no Tesla,” he said, referring to the U.S. automaker. “You can’t fill the void when you have 64 percent of production coming out of the DRC.” Demand for the metal, a key component in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars and mobile phones, is surging. Consultancy CRU Group say electric car and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales could quadruple to 4.4 million in 2021.

How China’s shaping one country’s future – Karishma Vaswani (British Broadcasting Corporation – June 23, 2017)

June 23, 2017

http://www.bbc.com/

China’s Belt and Road initiative is ploughing through central Asia. The plan, which aims to expand trade links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond, was unveiled in 2013. What impact has China’s grand plan had so far in Kazakhstan? I went to Almaty – the financial capital – to find out.

The lyrical strains of Almaty’s latest pop song reverberates through the city’s main Chinese market, lending a distinctly Kazakh feel to what looks like a scene that could easily be from Beijing or Shanghai.

Inside, signs in both Mandarin and Kazakh point out directions in the warren-like maze. It’s here that I meet Huang Jie, a jovial bear of a woman. She’s been running a convenience store in this market for 15 years, selling everything from hairbrushes to soy sauce. She came to Almaty from China to take part in an ice-skating competition, but then stayed on because of the opportunities here.

A breath of fresh air for deep mining: Century-old technology readapted to cool air in ultra-deep mines – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – June 22, 2017)

June 23, 2017

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

A new attraction on display at Dynamic Earth in Sudbury is bringing a century-old invention to the modern age with the aim reducing the costs of deep mining. The Hydraulic Air Compressor (HAC) demonstrator was unveiled at the tourist attraction with much fanfare on June 21.

The 100-foot-tall industrial scale system for testing and demonstrating air compression was installed in its own headframe in a former elevator shaft that used to be a part of Big Nickel Mine. “This project is going to do so much more than develop a new air circulation system, it’s going to rewrite the textbook on thermodynamics,” said project lead Dean Millar in an interview.

“This will make deep mining here in Sudbury, and ultimately the rest of the world safer, more cost efficient and greener.” The HAC Demonstrator project is a joint undertaking of a Sudbury research consortium involving the Ultra-Deep Mining Network (UDMN), MIRARCO Mining Innovation, Laurentian University, Electrale Innovation, Reasbeck Construction, Independent Electricity System Operator, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and Dynamic Earth.

Editorial: Africa remains a dominant force in global gold mining – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – June 21, 2017)

June 23, 2017

http://www.northernminer.com/

With so many troubles in Africa’s centres of gold mining — extremist attacks in West and North Africa, perennial challenges in Central Africa and the long, slow decline of violence-ridden South Africa — it can be easy to lose sight that, at least from a technical perspective, gold mining is still a strong and productive sector on the continent.

While global mine production increased in 2016 by 35 tonnes to 3,255 tonnes (104.7 million oz.) according to Metals Focus Ltd. and by 14 tonnes to 3,222 tonnes (103.6 million oz.) according to GFMS — both figures being the seventh consecutive, all-time highs, in contrast to earlier predictions of a slight decline — Africa stands out as one of the top-performing regions of the world for gold mine production.

According to Metals Focus, Africa hosts five countries among the world’s top gold-producing countries, which are led by the top five of China, Australia, Russia, the U.S. and Peru, which together produced 1,417.1 tonnes (45.6 million oz.) in 2016, or 44% of the global total.

As Canada’s first oilsands mine nears 50-year mark, site a contrast of old, new – by Dan Healing (Canadian Press/Victoria Times Colonist – June 23, 2017)

June 23, 2017

http://www.timescolonist.com/

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — Nearly 50 years after the opening of Canada’s first major oilsands mine, the site on the banks of Alberta’s Athabasca River is an epicentre of energy, teeming with bustling workers amid signs of its pioneering past and cutting-edge future.

One of the mine’s upgraders — opened in September 1967 — turns heavy, sticky oilsands bitumen into light synthetic oil to ship to market. In the very near future, the ore containing that bitumen may be hauled by driverless trucks currently undergoing testing on site.

“Technology is a wonderful thing,” said Bill Bruce, general manager of mine production at the Suncor Energy Base Plant, located 24 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. “In some cases people are afraid of it, but if you don’t evolve as an organization or as people, you will be left behind.”

INTERVIEW-South Africa’s mines minister open to talks with companies on new charter – by Ed Stoddard (Reuters U.K. – June 23, 2017)

June 23, 2017

http://uk.reuters.com/

MIDDELBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – South Africa Mines Minister Mosebenzi Zwane said on Friday that he was open to talks with companies over a new industry charter, as he rebuked the mining firms for planning to take the new rules to court, saying they were “negotiating in bad faith.”

Unveiled last week, the revisions to the charter raised the threshold for black ownership in the mining industry to 30 percent from 26 percent and brought in other regulations the sector said it cannot afford.

The Chamber of Mines has said it was not properly consulted and would challenge the charter in court. “Our doors are open to engagement with them. We will meet them,” Zwane said in an interview with Reuters when asked if he would negotiate with the chamber. “We do not want to go to court. We are a peaceful people,” he said.