Republic of Mining

B.C. Election 2017: NDP, Greens, Liberals agree mining is important, but must protect environment – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – May 7, 2017)

May 8, 2017

When the earth-and-rock dam that held back millions of cubic metres of mine waste and effluent at Imperial Metal’s Mount Polley mine failed in 2014, it left the mining industry in B.C. and Canada shaken.

One of the largest dam failures in the world in the past 50 years, it sparked concern among the public, environmental groups and First Nations that aquatic life would be harmed, particularly salmon that use the Quesnel Lake system to spawn in the B.C. Interior. Studies on the effects of the spill are expected to last for years. In the aftermath of the spill — and heading into the May 9 election — the B.C. Liberals continue to be strong proponents of mining.

In their platform, the Liberals say they want to see eight new mines created by 2020, and point to new mines opened under their tenure and those under construction, including the $811-million Brucejack underground gold mine in northern B.C.

After years of decline, mining appears to be on the rebound in Alaska – by Annie Zak (Alaska Dispatch News – May 8, 2017)

May 8, 2017May 8, 2017

https://www.adn.com/

After several years of decline, Alaska’s mining industry seems to be clawing its way back. With a host of new mining exploration announcements in recent months as many commodity prices recover from a yearslong tailspin, industry experts in the state say more companies are eyeing Alaska as a place to spend money prospecting and developing projects.

“It was a three- to four-year decline,” said Curt Freeman, president of Fairbanks mineral exploration consulting firm Avalon Development Corp. “But the upturn, you could kind of feel it in the last year.”

When commodity prices drop, companies tend to focus their spending on maintaining current operations in places where they already have infrastructure, said Deantha Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association. Isolated Alaska feels the squeeze even harder, she said, because during tougher times, companies don’t want to spend money exploring such remote areas.

Cobalt deal gives investors another way to bet on Tesla – by Mark Burton (Globe and Mail/Bloomberg – May 8, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

LONDON — Investors looking for a way to profit from surging demand for cobalt used in batteries for Tesla Inc. electric cars have had a hard time until now.

While futures prices for the metal are up about 130 per cent since the end of 2015, a lack of buyers and sellers on the market, the high cost of more than $50,000 (U.S.) a contract, and a dearth of listed miners specializing in cobalt has kept many investors away. Pala Investments Ltd. plans to change all that.

The Swiss mining fund, which began buying cobalt about a year ago in a bet on demand, plans to sell the metal to Toronto-listed Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. The Canadian firm, headed by Pala investment team managing director Anthony Milewski, plans to raise $200-million (Canadian) on the TSX Venture exchange (ticker KBLT) to purchase cobalt, including from the Zug-based fund.

Johnson Matthey approves of Nemaska Lithium’s first shipment – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – May 6, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Project developer Nemaska Lithium has received the first C$2-million tranche of a C$3-million milestone payment for delivering the first shipment of lithium hydroxide to offtake partner Johnson Matthey Battery Materials (JMBM), the company said Friday.

Quebec City-based Nemaska now expects to receive the final C$1-million payment by JMBM once Nemaska delivers a second shipment of lithium hydroxide that meets JMBM’s final criteria.

Nemaska expects to send the final samples once the lithium hydroxide solution is processed through the crystalliser, which has been received at the Phase 1 plant and is being commissioned.

Miners at disaster site besiege Iranian president’s car (Los Angeles Times – May 7, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://www.latimes.com/

ASSOCIATED PRESS – Angry coal miners besieged a car carrying Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday after he visited the site of a deadly mine explosion, a rare protest targeting the nation’s top elected official as he campaigns for reelection.

The miners, some covered in coal soot from searching for fallen comrades still missing in Wednesday’s disaster in Iran’s northern Golestan province, began kicking and banging on the armored SUV carrying Rouhani. Video posted online by the semi-official Fars news agency showed one miner on the SUV’s roof, another jumping up and down and kicking its hood.

“Dear brothers! I beg you wait for a couple of minutes!” someone shouts during the video. Rouhani’s SUV eventually nudges its way through the crowd amid the shouting. Another miner rushes up to kick the back of the vehicle as it speeds away down a hill.

Marine diamond mining: tough jobs — commercial diving on the seabed of Africa – by Jane Flowers (Blasting News – May 7, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://us.blastingnews.com/

The Namaqualand semi-desert of South Africa meets the sea and under those waters are diamonds: meet the men who dive for them

West coast diamond divers are a hard breed of men. These #commercial diving experts do one of the world’s #tough jobs to make a living. The #marine diamond mining vessels they work from are practical rather than luxurious. They are crammed with dive gear and machinery.

The vessel I am on is no Queen Mary. Cabins are dank and cold, every space is crammed with first aid kits, food, tools, pipes and compressors that boggle the mind and in the little galley what looks like black bean soup perks away on the gas stove. The commercial diving men who live aboard for days on end surround me. They sport tattoos and muscle bulk, yet they engage me with almost quaint old-fashioned good manners..

I am lucky to be here. Sea medicals and pre-sea safety inductions came my way through a work connection. Not every journalist in the world can get onto the marine diamond mining vessels in western South Africa.

OLD WEST LEGENDS: George Hearst – Father of a Mining & Publishing Empire (Legends of America – March 2014)

May 8, 2017

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/

Born near Sullivan, Missouri on September 3, 1820, to William and Elizabeth Collins Hearst, George was the oldest of three children. Two years later, his sister Martha (nicknamed Patsy,) was born and later a younger brother Philip arrived, who was unfortunately crippled from birth. From a young age, George worked on the family farm and received very little formal schooling.

Though Hearst was said to have had a lifelong interest in books, he had only rudimentary reading abilities. However, even without a formal education, Hearst was no dummy, as the world would soon see. When George was 26, his father William Hearst died owing some $10,000 to his creditors. George immediately took on the responsibility for caring for his mother, younger sister, and crippled brother.

Before long, George had improved on the farm’s profitability, opened a small store and leased a couple of prospective lead mines. The oldest economic endeavor in Missouri, lead had been mined in the area since 1715. Hearst had been interested in the mines since he was a child and once he bought the lead mines, he began to studying the mining business in earnest. His mines prospered, producing both lead and copper and within two years he was able to pay off his father’s debt.

MISSOURI LEGENDS: Joplin – A Lead Mining Maven (Legends of America – August 2015)

May 8, 2017

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/

When traveling Route 66, the path from Webb City to Joplin is seamless, as Webb City has virtually become a suburb of its larger sister city.

Joplin, Missouri, the self-touted lead mining capital of the world, was first settled by the Reverend Harris G. Joplin in 1839. The minister held church services in his home for other area pioneers long before the city of Joplin was ever formed. Before the Civil War, lead was discovered in the Joplin Creek Valley; but, mining operations were interrupted by the war.

In 1870, a large lead strike occurred which brought many miners to the area and numerous mining camps sprang up. Soon, a man named John C. Cox filed a town site plan on the east side of the valley which was quickly populated by a number of new businesses. The town was named for Joplin Creek, which was called such, after the Reverend Harris G. Joplin.

Memorial to hundreds killed in England’s biggest mining disaster (Yorkshire Post – May 7, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/

THE explosion made the ground shake for miles around, and flames erupted from 300 yards below. All around Barnsley – it was just before Christmas – “black snow” and burning wood fell out of the sky.

The apocalyptic scenes of December 1866 claimed 361 lives in England’s worst coal-mining disaster. The Oaks Colliery Disaster, which wrought so much devastation, was remembered yesterday as over a thousand people joined a huge procession, which bought the town to a standstill, for the unveiling of a new memorial.

In a poignant connection with the past, a steam buzzer, used to alert people of a disaster, was sounded before 20 descendants – including a Texan Sir William Jeffock, who bought his family across from the US – stepped forward to unveil the sculpture. Its centrepiece is “Kitty” whose eyes are fixed directly on the colliery, as her child clings terrified to her shawl.

The Trump riddle: Did the president’s grandfather — or another Fred Trumpf — flip klondike claims? – by Maura Forrest (National Post – May 6, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://news.nationalpost.com/

It was the summer of 1897, and word was beginning to filter south that there was gold up in the Klondike. Fred Trumpf got his foot in the door early. By the time the first prospectors landed in Seattle carrying the gold that launched the stampede, he’d already applied for a mining claim near Dawson City, in today’s Yukon Territory. His signature, “Fred Trumpf,” is still clearly visible on the original application, 120 years later.

By the looks of things, Trumpf wasn’t all that interested in digging for gold. On July 8, he split up his claim, which had cost him $15, and sold one half for $400. A few months later, he sold the other half for $2,000, equal to more than $50,000 today.

That September, he did it again — applied for a claim, split it up, and sold for a tidy profit. There’s no evidence he ever did any work on either claim. It’s widely known that Donald Trump’s grandfather — born Friedrich in Germany in 1869 — got his start by opening a gold rush hotel in the Yukon in 1898 and “mining the miners,” as Trump biographer Gwenda Blair put it.

[Laurentian President] Giroux welcomes challenge as hospital CEO – by Ben Leeson (Sudbury Star – May 8, 2017)

May 8, 2017

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Dominic Giroux’s current office, perched on the 11th floor of Laurentian University’s R.D. Parker building, is just a short jaunt from his new digs at Health Sciences North.

It will feel like a big move, however, when Giroux leaves his eight-year post as president and vice-chancellor at Northern Ontario’s largest university to become president and CEO of the region’s biggest hospital, as well as the HSN Research Institute.

Laurentian and HSN jointly announced on April 26 that Giroux had been unanimously chosen by a selection committee to replace the retiring Dr. Denis Roy on Oct. 2. Giroux’s last day at Laurentian is Aug. 18. Pierre Zundel, the university’s vice-president academic and provost, will serve as interim president until mid-2019.

Appalachia comes up small in era of giant coal mines – by Bonnie Berkowitz and Tim Meko (Washington Post – May 5, 2017)

May 5, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

As the coal industry is squeezed, the most productive mines employ huge machines and relatively few people.

The average miner underground in West Virginia produces three tons of coal per hour. The average miner at a strip mine in Wyoming produces nearly 28. That is not the fault of the miners but of the mines’ geology. Appalachian coal mines have a size problem.

This is different from the well-documented problems of the industry itself. Yes, cheap natural gas has become the go-to fuel for generating electricity. And pollution regulations have made coal-fired plants less profitable. Exports have waned as China and other countries mine more of their own coal, and renewable options such as wind and solar have become more practical and widely used.

But coal still accounts for 30 percent of the electricity generated in this country. The problem for Appalachia is that when the market is squeezed, its mines often can’t produce as much as the vast strip mines out west, where coal is easier to access and the machines that harvest it can be as big as engineers can build.

Sandmining is destroying Asia’s rivers (The Third Pole – May 5, 2017)

May 5, 2017

https://www.thethirdpole.net/

There is no house or road or bridge or port in South Asia whose builders can claim to have built it with legally obtained sand alone. Illegal mining of sand from riverbeds is so ubiquitous in the subcontinent that on the rare occasions it is stopped temporarily by a judicial order, house prices go up and editorials criticising the judgement are written in financial newspapers.

Reporting illegal sand mining is the most dangerous thing a journalist can do in India. In the last couple of years, three journalists have been killed, allegedly by the illegal sand mining mafia, one each in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

A fourth journalist reporting on illegal mining of sand from the beaches of Tamil Nadu has been repeatedly threatened; anonymous callers – claiming to speak on behalf of a local politician from the party that rules the state – have ordered her to stay away from the area or else.

Resource revenue sharing key to renewing nation-to-nation relationship – by Isador Day (Canadian Mining Journal – May 2017)

May 5, 2017

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

ISADORE DAY, Wiindawtegowinini, is Assembly of First Nations Ontario Regional Chief.

Ontario has the largest First Nation population in Canada and the most diverse and far-reaching population. The Caldwell First Nation is located at Point Pelee, the most southern tip of Canada. The Fort Severn First Nation is located on Hudson Bay and is the most northern community in all of Ontario.

Fort Severn was established as one of the very first trading posts in North America in 1689. Just a few decades later, the Mississauga Ojibwe began trading with the British and French on the shores of Lake Ontario. In fact, the trading post of Port Credit was partly built with the assistance of the Ojibwe.

This is where our nation-to-nation relationship began – through trade with the newcomers. When the newcomers arrived, we welcomed them with our hand in friendship. This is how treaties were formed; it is this hand in friendship and the friendship treaties – this is how Canada began.

De Beers pilots plan to store carbon dioxide in diamond-bearing rock – by Tanisha Heiberg (Reuters U.S. – May 4, 2017)

May 5, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

KROONSTAD, SOUTH AFRICA – Anglo American’s diamond unit De Beers is piloting a project to capture carbon in the rock from which diamonds are extracted to offset harmful emissions, the company said. As planet-warming carbon emissions rise globally, many countries have adopted or proposed a form of tax on emissions and companies in the mining and manufacturing sector are concerned that this will hit their future profits.

South Africa proposed a tax of 120 rand ($9) per tonne on carbon emissions in 2012 but postponed it on worries that it would hurt profits already eroded due to a global commodities slump and higher electricity tariffs. De Beers said it aimed to remove as much carbon as it emits within five to ten years, and will select one of its mines for the project due to start in 2019.

“This project offers huge potential to completely offset the carbon emissions of De Beers’ diamond mining operations,” project leader and geologist Evelyn Mervine said. De Beers wants to store carbon dioxide in the kimberlite rock once all the diamonds have been removed. The kimberlite turns into a solid compound when mixed with carbon dioxide.