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Globe editorial: On pipelines, Ottawa must have the final say (Globe and Mail – June 5, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

There’s a battle brewing between British Columbia and the federal government that could have an indelible impact on the future of Canada. It comes down to one question: Can Ottawa effectively exercise its responsibilities if the provinces refuse to recognize its authority on controversial issues?

The issue at hand is pipelines. Last fall, the Trudeau government approved Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion project, which will twin an existing pipeline along a route from Alberta to Burnaby, in Metro Vancouver. The decision came after a full review of the project by the National Energy Board.

In other words, Ottawa played by the rules and approved a project of the type that the Constitution places squarely in its jurisdiction: railways, canals, hydro lines, pipelines and other infrastrcture that cross provincial boundaries.

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Gowest aims to start production in 2018 – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – June 3, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – Just 24 hours after taking his first trip underground in his first ever gold mine, Gowest president and CEO Greg Romain had some encouraging words for junior mining executives and exploration workers this week. “You’ve got to keep it up. Like, you can’t give up. It is a tough game, especially when you’re a junior.” Romain said Thursday at the big event Canadian Mining Expo.

Romain was one of several speakers invited to take part in the Investor’s Forum. He was there to tell the story of developing the Bradshaw Deposit, located just north of the built up area of Timmins on a parcel of land near Highway 655.

That’s where Romain was on Wednesday of this week, inspecting the latest work now that the company has completed its first blast and is ramping downwards with Cementation Canada as the contractor. The first blast to open the portal was on May 11.

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Road blocks to the Ring of Fire: Details still scarce, election clock ticking on Far North mineral development – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 2, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Making any headway on building an access road to the Ring of Fire remains a complex, winding and muddled path. Despite Premier Kathleen Wynne’s strident tones in demanding progress to jumpstart development in the dormant Far North mineral belt, it could be years before any shovels are in the ground to blaze a road corridor to the James Bay lowlands.

The provincial bureaucrat leading the regional infrastructure planning process claims much work remains to forge First Nation partnerships with the Matawa tribal council before any construction takes place.

When Northern Development and Mines assistant deputy minister Christine Kaszycki was asked by an attendee at a May 25 Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon for a realistic timeline when Ring of Fire ore can be expected to start moving, she admitted she couldn’t provide one.

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Pakistan to open up mineral-rich Balochistan to China ‘Silk Road’ firms – by Gul Yousufzai and Drazen Jorgic (Live Mint.com – June 2, 2017)

http://www.livemint.com/

Quetta (Pakistan): Pakistan’s resource-rich Balochistan province wants Chinese companies to kick-start a boom in its mining industry by including the sector into Beijing’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, a senior provincial mining official said.

Beijing has pledged $57 billion for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship ‘Belt and Road‘ project that first focused on Chinese firms building roads and power stations but is now expanding to include setting up industries.

Mineral extraction is a deeply contentious issue in Balochistan, where many indigenous people are angry that the province remains Pakistan’s poorest despite its vast mineral wealth.

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UN climate conference 2018 heads to heartland of Polish coal – by Karl Mathiesen (Climate Change News – June 1, 2017)

http://www.climatechangenews.com/

The pivotal 2018 UN climate conference will be held in the heart of Poland’s coal mining industry, in a move that has angered some campaigners but offered others hope that it symbolises transition away from fossil fuels. The town of Katowice – founded on coal mining – is in the heart of the Upper Silesian coal basin and plays host to one of the European mining industry’s biggest trade fairs.

The choice of town was announced by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the day US president Donald Trump was expected to leave the Paris climate agreement.Poland has long been a reluctant participant in the UN process, dragged into an ambitious EU negotiating bloc but influenced by the powerful domestic coal industry.

Climate Home revealed this week that the country is now part of a concerted effort by eastern European countries to water down the EU laws that would help keep the promises made under the accord.

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Osisko Mining expects winnings from Windfall – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – May 23, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Osisko Mining’s (TSX: OSK) 400,000-metre drill program at its Windfall project in Quebec should lead to a resource update before year-end, a feasibility study and permitting in 2018, and construction in 2019, president and CEO John Burzynski announced at The Northern Miner’s Canadian Mining Symposium in London.

“We could pour gold as early as 2020,” Burzynski said during a presentation at the one-day mining event at Canada House on May 9. “It’s an aggressive time frame … we’ve got an aggressive program, with lots of drills and more drills coming.”

Twenty-two drill rigs are turning at the project and Osisko will have 25 rigs by the start of June, in what is easily the largest drill program on any one deposit in Canada, and arguably the largest anywhere in the world.

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Chinese railroaders like the route to the Ring of Fire – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 2, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Feasibility study projects moving mega-tonnes of chromite out of Far North

A delegation of KWG Resources and Marten Falls First Nation (MFFN), one of the communities near the Ring of Fire deposits, completed a trip to China to lay the foundation for a Far North railway and project financing.

A June 1 KWG release said the group was provided with an overview of the feasibility study began last year, when they most recently visited with their project partner, China Railway First Survey & Design Institute Group (FSDI), at its headquarters in Xian, China on May 15.

The company was advised by its Chinese partners that the study had concluded that the route which traverses the Marten Falls’ traditional territory was a viable alignment for the construction of a chromite ore-haul railroad.

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Two Ontario cobalt players partner on processing – staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 1, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Refinery joint venture in the works but legal questions remain on plant ownership

Two cobalt exploration companies have entered into an agreement to establish a joint venture involving a controversial refinery in northeastern Ontario. First Cobalt announced June 1 that it has entered into an option agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture partnership with Cobalt One, (formerly Equator Resources) the pending new owner of the Yukon refinery in North Cobalt.

In a news release, First Cobalt said their “strategic partnership” with Cobalt One will give them access to the refinery and 40 acres of permitted land to process silver-cobalt arsenide concentrates from its historic Keeley-Frontier mine project.

“The Yukon refinery and the 40 acres of permitted property can help us reduce the permitting timeline in a meaningful fashion for a future development project,” said First Cobalt president-CEO Trent Mell.

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Trump calls out the global-control agenda of the Paris deal, but Canada remains oblivious – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – June 2, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Remember the United Nations’ Kyoto Protocol? It landed in 1997 — amid alarming forecasts of rampant eco-disasters, rising sea levels, desertification, hell on earth — with commitments from leading nations to control their carbon emissions. And it crashed in 2012 — expired, they said.

Canada embraced Kyoto Protocol targets, deemed essential to help save the planet from environmental crises. During the first commitment period ending in 2012, Canada had signed on to carbon-emissions reductions of six-per-cent below 1990 levels. In 2012, Canada reported an emissions increase of 18-per-cent above 1990 levels. Canada got out of Kyoto in 2011.

Now let us remember the United Nations’ Paris agreement. It landed in 2015 — amid similar warnings of rampant environmental crises that surrounded Kyoto — with leading nations, including Canada, committed to tough emissions targets. On Thursday, the Paris agreement crashed as U.S. President Donald Trump, in his best policy speech so far as president, announced: “We are getting out.”

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In conversation with Dominican Republic Pueblo Viejo’s Greg Walker (Barrick Beyond Borders – May 2017)

http://barrickbeyondborders.com/

Walker is the Executive General Manager of the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic

Greg Walker is the Executive General Manager of the Pueblo Viejo mine, a role he has held since September 2016. He has more than 37 years of experience in mining, including 14 at Barrick. Before joining Pueblo Viejo, Greg worked in progressively senior roles at the Porgera Joint Venture in Papua New Guinea, including Executive Managing Director. He is a former General Manager of the Bulyanhulu and Tulawaka mines in Tanzania, both properties of Acacia Mining, in which Barrick holds a 64 percent stake. He has a proven track record of delivering best-in-class business improvement, training and mentoring local workforces, and of working exceptionally well with government and community partners.

BEYOND BORDERS: YOU’VE BEEN AT PUEBLO VIEJO FOR EIGHT MONTHS NOW, WHAT ARE SOME THINGS THAT STAND OUT FOR YOU ABOUT THE OPERATION?

Greg Walker: Pueblo Viejo is a world-class operation, has a world-class ore body and is one of the top three gold-producing mines in the world. It’s a great resource with untapped potential.

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Trump ‘Has a Point’ on China’s Cheap Aluminum, Glencore CEO Says – by Jack Farchy, Erik Schatzker and Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – June 1, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Donald Trump “has a point” in criticizing China’s trade in aluminum and steel as cheap power has effectively been a subsidy to Chinese producers, said Glencore Plc chief Ivan Glasenberg.

Trump should be pragmatic in dealing with China, given that it imports a lot of U.S. goods, said Glasenberg during a Bloomberg Television panel at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

“China was producing coal and selling it to the power stations at a loss,” he said. “Aluminum companies were getting subsidized power.”

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Tahoe investing big bucks in Timmins operations – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – June 1, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – It has been just over a year that Tahoe Resources Inc. came onto the mining skyline in Timmins and in that period the company has wasted no time moving forward. In fact Tahoe is poised to spend upwards of $350 million in the Timmins area this year alone.

That was part of the welcome news brought to the table Thursday afternoon by Mark Utting, Tahoe’s vice-president of investor relations. Utting was the keynote speaker at the Investor’s Forum held as part of the Big Event Canadian Mining Expo at the McIntyre Community Building.

He recalled that it was April 1 of last year that Tahoe moved in to acquire all the assets of Lake Shore Gold, the newest commercial gold mining company in the city, with operations at Bell Creek and the Timmins West mining complex.

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Having hit potential ‘tale of the tiger’, reinvigorated Northern Superior gathers momentum – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – June 1, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior exploration company Northern Superior Resources is building on the strong momentum gained in recent months, making two new gold discoveries at its Croteau Est project, in Quebec, and gearing up for further exploration at its key assets.

“It’s very exciting to get back to exploration again,” president and CEO Dr Thomas Morris told Mining Weekly Online in a recent interview (see attached video). “We find ourselves flush with cash and the aim is to demonstrate growth in terms of ounces.”

Morris pointed out that at March 31, the company had cash and cash equivalents of C$6.61-million, comprising C$2.11-million of flow-through funds, and working capital of C$5.55-million.

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Mining reps weary of all talk, no action in Ring of Fire – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – June 1, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – Some key players in the Ontario mining industry said they’re getting sick and tired hearing about the Ring of Fire. That’s mainly because for all the talk about the mining prospect, nothing is being been done about it.

That was part of the discussion that came out Thursday during the Investor’s Forum at the Big Event Canadian Mining Expo that was on this week in Timmins. Part of the forum included an open discussion on what might be done to get the higher levels of government to get moving to develop the area.

The Ring Of Fire refers to a massive deposit of chromite and nickel located in the McFauld’s Lake and Webequie area, about 600 kilometres northwest of Timmins. Chromite is an important element for manufacturing stainless steel. The Ring of Fire area could become the largest chromite mining site in North America, a venture that is often measured in the tens of billions of dollars.

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Another multinational employer is fleeing Ontario and the Wynne government doesn’t seem to care – by Bob Runciman (Financial Post – May 31, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Bob Runciman, now a senator, served as interim leader of the Ontario PC Party and as minister of Economic Development and Trade.

My hometown of Brockville, Ont. was hit with a devastating blow last week with the announcement that multinational consumer-products maker Procter and Gamble is closing its local plant, taking with it 500 jobs.

P&G is Brockville’s largest private-sector employer — only the school board and the hospital employ more. The company has been a model corporate citizen for 40 years, donating millions of dollars to local causes and generally making Brockville a better place.

And I think it is fair to say Brockville made P&G a better company. The local plant has a well-educated, resourceful, diligent workforce. Although the plant made such household cleaning products as Tide and Bounce over the years, it is most famous as the site that pioneered the Swiffer sweeper.

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