Republic of Mining

Palladium rally shines on bullish industrial demand – by Neil Hume (Financial Times – Janurary 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

https://www.ft.com/

Palladium has started 2017 with a bang. The metal has climbed more than 8 per cent in the first three trading days, taking it to $735 an ounce, thanks to strong US and Chinese manufacturing data as well as a buoyant set of sales figures from General Motors.

Unlike other precious metals, palladium is sensitive to changes in industrial demand because one of its most common uses is to reduce fumes from petrol-powered vehicles. This sets it apart from gold and silver, which are more heavily influenced by changes in monetary policy and broader risk appetite.

Palladium rose almost 20 per cent last year, outperforming gold and sister metal platinum, which gained just 1 per cent. Platinum is used in catalytic converters but in the smaller diesel market — and it has also rallied this week, helped by optimism about global economic growth.

Seventeen of top 100 CEO salaries in 2015 were in the mining industry – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

A study on executive compensation by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the 100 highest paid CEOS working at companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015 earned the average annual Canadian wage before noon on Jan. 3, the first working day of that year.

“Total compensation for Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs in 2015 hit a historic high, registering at $9.5 million—193 times the average industrial wage in Canada,” Hugh Mackenzie, the study’s author writes, noting that the average earnings rate for Canadians in that year was $49,510.

In addition, the average earnings of Canada’s corporate top 100 jumped by 178% between 1998 and 2015, the economist pointed out, or from $3.39 million per year in 1998 to $9.47 million in 2015. “Public outrage over the CEO pay gap hasn’t curbed corporate boards’ enthusiasm for lining the bank accounts of their executives,” Mackenzie writes.

Learn from asbestos – and do more to protect Canadians – by Will Amos and David R. Boyd (Ottawa Citizen -January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://ottawacitizen.com/

The story of asbestos is a cautionary, disturbing and timely tale. The recent announcement that Canada will enact a comprehensive ban by 2018 is a decision that will save lives and prevent painful diseases caused by exposure to this deadly substance.

Banning asbestos is an important step towards fulfilling the fundamental right of all Canadians to live in a healthy environment. It also demonstrates that we finally have a federal government willing to make decisions based on scientific evidence.

To be clear: the decision comes decades late. Thousands of Canadians have already died from mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer. Thousands more will suffer the same fate in the coming years. Asbestos is far and away the leading occupational killer, costing Canada billions of dollars annually.

Coalition backs $100bn growth plan for coal industry – by David Crowe (The Australian – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

The federal government is backing a $100 billion investment target to expand the Australian coal industry as it blasts the “hypocrisy” of environmentalists who want to halt new mines, escalating a fight over attempts to mandate more solar and wind power.

Aiming to open up vast new deposits for export, the government is mobilising against warnings about the “end of coal” as it considers a $1bn loan for the Adani mine in central Queensland on the condition the cash will help further projects.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan told The Australian it would be hypocritical to stop coal production or exports on the grounds that developing nations should not use fossil fuels to drive their economic growth.

Tesla starts Gigafactory battery cell production – by Tom Randall (Australian Financial Review – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.afr.com/

The Gigafactory has been activated. Hidden in the scrubland east of Reno, Nevada, where cowboys gamble and wild horses still roam, a diamond-shaped factory of outlandish proportions is emerging from the sweat and promises of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk.

It’s known as the Gigafactory, and today its first battery cells are rolling off production lines to power the company’s energy storage products and, before long, the Model 3 electric car.

The start of mass production is a huge milestone in Tesla’s quest to electrify transportation, and it brings to America a manufacturing industry – battery cells – that’s long been dominated by China, Japan, and South Korea.

British Columbia to clean up mine near Juneau (Washington Times – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Associated Press – JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Canadian officials say they will take action to prevent polluted water from a decades-old mine from entering the Taku River, a key source of salmon caught in southeast Alaska.

British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett told CoastAlaska News (http://bit.ly/2iGcewN) experts will explore different options, including plugging leaking tunnels from the defunct Tulsequah Chief Mine. The acidic water has been carrying pollutants into the Tulsequah River, which is a tributary of the Taku near Juneau.

The mine hasn’t operated since 1957, and the two companies that tried to reopen it in the last 20 years have been unsuccessful.

Scarce Minerals Are Running Out: Mining Quotas Are Needed in Resource Crisis — by Theo Henckens (Counter Currents.org – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

https://www.countercurrents.org/

Molybdenum is essential for the manufacture of high-grade stainless steels, but at present molybdenum is hardly recycled. Yet unless reuse of molybdenum is dramatically increased, the extractable reserves of molybdenum on Earth will run out in about eighty years from now.

The extractable reserves of antimony, a mineral used to make plastics more heat-resistant, will run out within thirty years.During more than a century the use of mineral resources increased exponentially with an average between 3 and 4% annually. Can this go on, given the limited amounts of mineral resources in the earth’s crust?

Which raw materials or minerals are scarce?A mineral’s scarcity is expressed as the number of years that its extractable amount in the Earth’s crust is sufficient to meet anticipated demand. This exhaustion period is estimated from the annual use of such mineral.

Child labor in eastern Cameroon’s gold mines – by Moki Kindzeka (Deutsche Welle – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.dw.com/en/

Children in eastern Cameroon leave school as young as seven to work in gold mines. Moki Kindzeka travelled to the mining town of Betare-Oya where residents have an uneasy relationship with the Chinese mining community.

The road to Betare-Oya in eastern Cameroon is better than it used to be. Five years ago, it was narrow and bumpy but in the meantime the surface has been tarred and the ride is much smoother.

Simon Estil, the senior government official in Betare-Oya, says urban development in the area is being driven by gold mining. He said there used to be a market just once a week, now the market is open daily and a second one has sprung up.

Tough labor talks could lead to strike at Escondida copper mine: union – by Anthony Esposito and Antonio De la Jara (Reuters U.S. – January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017January 5, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO – Workers at BHP Billiton-owned Escondida, the world’s biggest copper mine, could go on strike in February if collective contract talks with the company are unsuccessful, union spokesman Carlos Allende told Reuters on Wednesday.

The warning came after the company rejected all the workers’ demands, Allende said. He said the proposal the company presented would cut the benefits workers receive in their current contract.

“With this attitude the only thing the company is doing is creating an open conflict because the demands were agreed on by the workers,” said Allende.

France ready to save nuclear group Areva whoever wins presidency – by Geert De Clercq (Reuters U.S. – January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

PARIS-A government-led rescue of French nuclear group Areva and the wider atomic energy industry may cost the state as much as 10 billion euros ($10.45 billion), but political support is almost certain whoever wins the presidential election in May.

While taxpayers will ultimately pick up the huge bill, the main election contenders – from the Socialists and conservatives to the far-right National Front – broadly back the bailout, which involves splitting up Areva. (AREVA.PA)

On top of its dire financial state, Areva is beset by technical, regulatory and legal problems. But given its importance to a nuclear industry that generates three quarters of France’s electricity and employs 220,000 people, the next government probably has little choice but to stand by the scheme hatched under outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande.

Challenge 2017: ‘One company, one mine’ could kick off radical return to gold mining’s golden age – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Ian Ball, the 35-year-old chief executive of Abitibi Royalties Inc. with a reputation for being a disruptor in an aging industry, has a radical — if not novel — thesis on how to reinvigorate excitement for gold mining: a return to the days of “one company, one mine.”

In other words, Ball, who first bought gold stocks with his allowance at the age of five and became president of McEwen Mining Inc. when he was 31, yearns for the golden days of mining.

“You look back to the great fortunes that have been made in Canada, it’s always been one mine per company: It was Goldstrike: Barrick; Red Lake: Goldcorp; LaRonde: Agnico Eagle,” he said. “When they started diversifying was when the returns started to go down.”

Two decades after closure of Yukon’s Faro mine, a cleanup plan takes shape – by Justin Giovannetti (Globe and Mail – January 4, 2017)

January 4, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

FARO, YUKON — The Yukon’s abandoned Faro mine is a 25-square-kilometre moonscape, where deep pits filled with millions of tonnes of toxic waste are contained by substandard dams, and mountains of rubble tower in the background.

What was once the world’s largest open-pit zinc mine is one of Canada’s costliest environmental liabilities, according to the federal government, a toxic blight that has yet to be cleaned up after nearly two decades.

“We hardly talk about it, but Faro is a sleeping giant. The amount of money we’re spending is astronomical,” said Lewis Rifkind, who has kept an eye on the Faro project for years as part of the Yukon Conservation Society. Government spending has served only to attempt to keep the blight at bay, but now, after 14 years, Ottawa is close to finalizing its proposed plan to clean up the site.

[South Africa] Mining at 150 should be celebrated, not threatened yet again – by John Kane-Berman (Politicsweb.com – January 3, 2017)

January 4, 2017

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/

The year 2017 will be the 150th anniversary of the discovery of diamonds in South Africa. Actually, that may not be strictly accurate, as diamonds might have been discovered earlier although not put to commercial use. But the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange in 1867 sparked off mining all over the country.

It also sparked off many other things, including the first stock exchange in Africa in nearby Kimberley in 1881, where Cecil Rhodes consolidated thousands of small diggings. Another direct by-product of mining was two universities, those of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria, which originated in a school of mines in Kimberley.

Diamond mining begat gold mining, which begat coal mining, as the mines needed colossal amounts of energy. Railways had to be built, and the mines played a huge part in financing them. Mining, in short, turned South Africa from an agricultural into an industrial economy, whence it matured into one dominated by the service industries spawned by the needs of the mining and industrial sectors.

After Jharkhand toll, 2016 one of deadliest years for mine workers – by Anil Sasi (Indian Express – January 3, 2017)

January 5, 2017January 4, 2017

http://indianexpress.com/

Eastern Coalfields, where the latest accident has taken place, is a subsidiary of State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL), the world’s largest coal miner.

Thursday night’s mine collapse at Eastern Coalfields Ltd’s Lal Matia coal mine in Jharkhand rounds up one of the deadliest years for those toiling deep in the bowels of the earth.

The 17 mine worker deaths reported till January 1 sharply push up the mining fatality count for this year, which stood at 65 across both coal and non-coal mines during just the first six months of this year, for which latest data is available — translating into a fatality every three days. More than a dozen workers remain trapped.

In a sector whose safety record is far from inspiring, at least 122 people more were documented to have met with a serious accident during this period, which translates into a serious accident every one and a half days. With a fatal accident every three days, mining is arguably the most dangerous profession in India, alongside ship-breaking.

Ontario’s plan: destroy jobs, save the planet – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – January 4, 2017)

January 4, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Here in clean, green Ontario, where the ambitions of our government know no bounds, a bright new year has dawned. Gasoline is likely to rise by 4.3 cents a litre. Your hydro bill is going up. You’ll pay more for natural gas, too.

But don’t feel blue. You are helping save the planet. All of these higher costs are part of the government’s new cap-and-trade scheme, a vast multibillion-dollar enterprise that is designed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by redistributing tons of money to big emitters in California and subsidy-seekers here at home.

Unfortunately, the timing is terrible – especially for an increasing number of small- and medium-sized business owners, who can’t figure out how to make a living here any more.