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BHP’s new chairman has choice between exciting and boring – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – June 19, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, AUSTRALIA – There has been no shortage of advice doled out to incoming BHP Billiton chairman Ken MacKenzie on how to boost the world’s largest mining company, but ultimately his role comes down to a fairly straightforward choice.

Does BHP want to be a cutting edge mining company always on the prowl for the next big opportunity, or does it want to be a cautious, dividend-focused cash generator, something akin to being the telecoms utility of the mining world?

If there is anything that can be learned from the performance of BHP, and indeed most of its global mining rivals, in the past decade, it’s that escaping the ups and downs of the commodity cycle is extremely difficult for a miner.

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ANALYSIS: Turnaround in Tanzania’s Mining Sector Is Possible – by Krispinana Krispinana (All Africa – June 18, 2017)

http://allafrica.com/

The mining sector in Tanzania is experiencing hard times now. The legacy of mining of the past decades has been shown to be very unfavourable to the country’s interests in a recent report of Prof Nehemiah Osoro Committee formed by President John Magufuli to investigate the legal and economic impact of mining in relation to the impoundment of the mineral concentrates in containers that were destined for export by Acacia Mining Plc, a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation.

Tanzania still has the potential in mining, but it needs the mining sector that operates on an overhauled legal, tax and regulatory landscape. This piece is intended to explore and flesh out tough dialogue between Barrick Gold Corporation, on the one part, and the government of Tanzania, on the other. Such dialogue is critical to reorganising Tanzania’s mining sector.

There is a view enunciated by economist Milton Friedman in 1970 that “the business of business is business”, that is, to make profit notwithstanding the existing cultural, socio-political and environmental circumstances of a country.

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Felice Pedroni (Felix Pedro)- Sparked the 1902 Fairbanks Gold Rush – by Thomas K. Bundtzen (Alaska Mining Hall of Fame – 1998/2009)

http://alaskamininghalloffame.org/

Felice Pedroni, best known by his Hispanicized alias, Felix Pedro, was an Italian immigrant whose discovery of gold in the then remote Tanana River valley of Interior Alaska, sparked the 1902 Fairbanks gold rush, which resulted in the development of Alaska’s largest gold district, frequently referred to by chroniclers of the day as “America’s Klondike”.

Pedroni was born on April 16th, 1858, in Fanano, Duchy of Modena, Italy, to a family of subsistence farmers. In 1881, following the death of his father, Pedroni arrived in New York City, and eventually assumed the name of Felix Pedro. Pedro traveled across the North American Continent, and worked in New York City, Ohio, Washington State, and British Columbia and Yukon Territory, Canada.

In each locale, Felix would work until he had earned enough money to travel again. Pedro finally reached Alaska sometime in the 1890s, before the 1893 Circle (Alaska) and 1896 Klondike (Canada) gold rushes. The Circle-based Pedro first prospected the Fortymile district near the Canadian border, and then the Piledriver Slough area near present day community of Salcha.

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Museum offers nuggets of mining history – by Staff (News Miner – June 16, 2017)

http://www.newsminer.com/

http://alaskamininghalloffame.org/

FAIRBANKS – Fairbanks has its roots in gold. When Felix Pedro found gold in Fish Creek in 1902, he and his fellow prospectors laid the groundwork for today’s lively community. Pedro, and the miners who followed him, including those active today, forged a rich history that is captured in the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame museum on First Avenue.

The museum, organized by the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame Foundation, opened in summer 2014 and is located in the Historic Bath House and Oddfellow’s Hall at 825 First Ave., on the corner of First Avenue and Cowles Street.

The two-story building was constructed in 1907. The Alaska Mining Hall of Fame Foundation was formed to honor outstanding individuals who have played important roles in the development of Alaska’s mineral industry.

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Investors Are Warning Clients That SA’s Mining Sector Is Now ‘Uninvestable’ – by Staff Reporter (Huffington Post South Africa – June 19, 2017)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/

Investors are ringing alarm bells after the new mining charter was released by Mineral Resources Mosebenzi Zwane.

The new mining charter, announced by mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane on Thursday, has resulted in backlash from stakeholders, including unions and investors, Business Day reported on Monday.

The mining sector is now being called “uninvestable”. The charter includes requirements for companies to increase empowerment ownership to 30% within 12 months.

According to Business Day, Investec, in a note to its clients, said the charter made “South African miners uninvestable to a large segment of the market and it will be very tough to attract fresh capital to an already unloved sector.”

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Some Indonesian nickel smelters cease operations due to falling prices (Reuters U.S. – June 19, 2017)

http://www.reuters.com/

About a dozen newly constructed nickel smelters in Indonesia have stopped operations due to a plunge in nickel prices while others are operating at a loss, an industry association executive said on Monday.

Thirteen smelters with a combined capacity of 750,000 tonnes of nickel pig iron a year “were forced to cease operation” because nickel prices reached as low as around $8,000 a tonne, Jonatan Handojo, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Smelter Association told Reuters, declining to name the owners of the smelters.

Three-month nickel touched a one-year low of $8,680 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange last week and is down more than 10 percent so far this year. The metal was trading at $8,975 per tonne on Monday at 0800 GMT.

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Nova Scotia gold rush 2.0: Miners seek riches in tiny flecks of precious metal – by Michael Tutton (Metro News.ca/Canadian Press – June 18 2017)

http://www.metronews.ca/

MOOSE RIVER GOLD MINES, NOVA SCOTIA, Canada — Amid the dull claystone of a tube-shaped sample of rock, the gleaming, pulse-quickening swirl of gold is unmistakable.

“It’s quite a special specimen of gold — it’s by far the best visible section of gold we’ve ever intersected,” said Tim Bourque, a geologist with Atlantic Gold Corp, cradling the metre-long sample in his arms. The rock was gathered last fall at the firm’s Fifteen Mile Lake property, one of four deposits it owns in Nova Scotia’s old gold districts.

The discovery of the precious metal in such unremarkable hunks of stone is helping to revive a dormant industry — and Bourque hopes it will keep the company’s Moose River Consolidated Project flourishing after its initial Touquoy mine starts up here in September.

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Head north to understand why Canada needs an infrastructure bank – by Pierre Gratton (Globe and Mail – June 18, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Pierre Gratton is president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada.

Any government initiative with a $35-billion price tag is bound to drum up political debate, and the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) has been seeing its fair share. But I stand with the International Monetary Fund, Canadian and global business groups, and aboriginal organizations who say that the CIB, if well structured, is exactly what Canada needs to grow the economy over the long term. Bold action is needed to address an area that we’ve been failing at: constructing strategic, nation-building infrastructure.

Many of you are probably reading this on a digital device connected to wireless high-speed Internet. And I’ll assume that many of you are reading this at work, a place that you travelled to on roads, and that is powered by the electrical grid. Pretty mundane stuff, right? But it’s not if you’re living or working in remote and northern areas of Canada.

I should know. I represent a major Canadian industry whose opportunities for growth are increasingly in areas where infrastructure simply does not exist, or is severely lacking.

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Teck dumping unjustified – by Staff (Mining Journal – June 19, 2017)

http://www.mining-journal.com/

The market’s reaction to Teck Resources’ (CN:TECK.A) expected realised coking coal price announced late last week shows a misunderstanding of how the stock’s coal business works and an underappreciation for the overall business, according to BMO Capital Markets.

Teck said second quarter 2017 prices for coking coal sold under quarterly contracts had been established based on an average of three assessments – a new system for Teck that will be carried forward – resulted in an average price of US$190 per tonne.

This fed through to an average realised coal price for Teck of US$160-165/t, considerably lower than the quarterly benchmark price and Teck’s usual average realised price for the second quarter.

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Harte Gold’s Sugar Zone just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ analyst says – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – June 16, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Harte Gold Corp’s (TSX: HRT) Sugar zone deposit in northern Ontario will be in commercial production in the second quarter of 2018, chairman and CEO, Stephen Roman, told The Northern Miner’s Canadian Mining Symposium in London.

When Roman took over management of the company at the request of shareholders in 2009, Sugar was known to contain around 200,000 ounces of gold.

But the mining executive, who had sold Gold Eagle Mines the year before to Goldcorp (TSX: G; NYSE:GG) for $1.5 billion, had a hunch that the project, 25 km northeast of White River and 60 km east of the Hemlo area gold mines, held an awful lot more gold than that.

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Mining 101: A brief history of the industry in Nevada – by Staff (Las Vegas Sun – February 1, 2016)

https://lasvegassun.com/

Less than 1 percent of Nevada’s land houses mining operations.
But the 167,000 acres that are being mined are spread across
almost the entire state. Only Carson City and Douglas County
have no mines. There are 110 mines in the state, and 2,230
companies connected to their operations.

Modern-day mining in Nevada is a high-tech business, not a get-rich-quick dream. Operators use drones to survey, monstrous trucks to haul and T-Rex-sized power shovels to chomp into the ground. Permits and environmental applications take years to approve.

Technology has transformed the business. But the first step remains the same: Stake a claim.

Unlike the old days, mining companies no longer can simply slam a post in the ground and own what’s below the surface dirt. To make a claim, mining companies must inform federal and state agencies that minerals are believed to be underground, pay a slate of fees, then begin a government application process that can last 10 years before a shovel hits the ground. There are two types of mining claims:

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Western tensions stoked as mining interests seek to lift ban on claims – by Daniel Rothberg (Las Vegas Sun – June 19, 2017)

https://lasvegassun.com/

In 2012, then-President Barack Obama issued a 20-year ban on mining claims near the Grand Canyon. The move halted future uranium extraction projects in the region, a win for environmentalists and local tribes that had fought against the industry for years.

But some elected officials in Arizona and Utah disputed their claims of contamination risk, arguing that the ban would unnecessarily sacrifice jobs for overblown environmental concerns. With President Donald Trump swinging the pendulum toward economic development, opponents of the ban are asking the administration to lift it.

Their request and Trump’s reconsideration of nuclear policy in the West have stoked debate over how environmental concerns should be weighed against economic potential. That tension underlies discussions about everything from increasing nuclear testing to storing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, only 90 miles from Las Vegas. And it highlights the inescapable nature of the West’s nuclear legacy.

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ETF rebalancing a bumpy ride for junior gold miners – by Joyita Sengupta (Globe and Mail – June 14, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In an unprecedented move, one of the most popular junior gold miner exchange-traded funds is set to rebalance on Friday after growing too large for its market. After months of volatility, miners and investors alike are preparing for even more uncertainty.

Cursed by its own success as a $4-billion (U.S.) ETF in a $30-billion space, VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ-N) began to expand beyond the index it tracks, the MVIS Global Junior Gold Miner’s Index.

Combined with VanEck’s Vectors Gold Miner ETF, (GDX-N), the company is nearing the significant shareholder status point of 20-per-cent ownership in several companies, many of which are Canadian, which means special filing requirements and significant trading restraints.

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Measuring labor productivity in the gold mining industry – by Adam Webb S & P Market Intelligence – March 31, 2017)

http://marketintelligence.spglobal.com/

Labor productivity in the mining industry is often expressed as tonnes of ore mined per man hour and, as a consequence, open pit mines are often described as being more productive than underground mines. However, looking at productivity in terms of revenue generated per man hour accounts for both primary grade and valuable byproduct metals in the ore and shows a different regional picture compared to that suggested by the more simplistic measure of ore mined per man hour.

This metric shows that underground mining is more competitive in terms of labor productivity when compared with open pit mining than is sometimes suggested by the more conventional metric of ore mined per man hour.

For this study, S&P Global Market Intelligence looked at 137 primary gold open pit and underground mines across 30 countries in 2016. Figure 1 shows the average ore mined per man hour for all 30 countries. Employees in the United States are apparently the most productive, while in some more developed nations, such as New Zealand and Chile, the workforce seems surprisingly unproductive.

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Electric-car subsidies take greenwashing to a new level – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – June 19, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Next month, Montreal will host a Formula E championship – an electric car race for which the city’s taxpayers will cough up $24-million in addition to guaranteeing a $10-million line of credit for the group organizing the event. All for the distinction of hosting a race no one’s heard of.

That’s even more than the $18.7-million that Ottawa, Quebec and Montreal pay Formula One owners each year to host the Canadian Grand Prix, the fossil-fuel-powered car race that draws thousands of tourists to the city each June. That makes the Formula E one pricey carbon offset.

It seems there is no length to which some politicians won’t go to in their drive to look greener than thou. His support for the carbon-spitting Grand Prix notwithstanding, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre fancies himself an environmental trailblazer, never missing a photo op that involves hugging an electric-vehicle (EV) charging station. He makes going green look so easy.

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