Republic of Mining

Trump win ignites hope for stalled Alaska copper, gold mine – by Nicle Mordant(Reuters – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

VANCOUVER – A small Canadian miner is confident Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential win will let it proceed with an application for a copper and gold mine in Alaska that has been stalled almost three years by environmental regulators aiming to protect the world’s biggest sockeye salmon fishery.

Ronald Thiessen, chief executive officer and president of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd, said he expected the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to announce in the first quarter of 2017 that it will let the application process proceed for the controversial project. He said the company has held discussions with Trump’s transition team, including Myron Ebell, who heads the EPA transition.

Shares in Northern Dynasty, which owns the massive Pebble deposit in southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, have more than doubled since the U.S. election on Nov. 8. The shares surged 23 percent on Nov. 9 alone.

Phosphate industry has a large footprint in Florida – by Zach Murdock (Sarasota Herald-Tribune – December 20, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://www.heraldtribune.com/

SARASOTA – Four area environmental groups announced Tuesday that they plan to sue two federal agencies over approvals of more than 50,000 acres for phosphate mining across central Florida.

The groups contend the operations “irretrievably damage habitat for imperiled species, threaten water quality and forever change Florida’s landscape” in and around critical watersheds that are a major source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Southwest Florida residents, including Manatee and Sarasota counties.

The joint lawsuit will be filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, ManaSota-88, People for Protecting Peace River and Suncoast Waterkeeper against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to the notice of intent to sue issued Tuesday morning.

Big Utility Sees Pathway to $10 Oil – by Francois De Beaupuy (Bloomberg News – December 20, 2016)

December 21, 2016

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The oil industry must brace for five energy “tsunamis” that threaten to drag prices as low as $10 a barrel in less than a decade, according to Engie SA’s innovation chief.

The falling cost of solar power and battery storage, rising sales of electric vehicles, increasingly “smart” buildings and cheap hydrogen will all weigh on crude, Thierry Lepercq, head of research, technology and innovation at the French energy company, said in an interview.

“Even if oil demand continues to climb until 2025, its price could drop to $10 if markets anticipate a significant fall in demand,” Lepercq said at his office near Paris. Crude last slumped to that level in 1998.

Short View: Trump’s coal hard truths – by Alan Livsey (Financial Times – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

https://www.ft.com/

Donald Trump’s holiday gift season actually starts in January, the 20th to be exact. From then he must deliver on all the promises he made in his presidential campaign over the past year or so.

One of those promises was to hand out sacks of coal, not to the bad kids, but ideally to every American. Get everyone using more coal: stop this fad for renewable energy, and keep the Environmental Protection Agency in check over clean-air regulations that reduce demand for coal.

Produce more coal and the miners in states such as West Virginia can get their jobs back, the thinking goes. That state has suffered the brunt of job cuts in that sector.

Restructuring the shaft of shame: Rubicon Minerals aims to start anew in 2017 – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – December 20, 2016)

December 21, 2016

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

An Ontario court has approved a restructuring plan to revive a shuttered gold mine development in northwestern Ontario.

Rubicon Minerals was granted a sanction order from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Dec. 8, to approve the Toronto-based mine developer’s refinancing and restructuring plan for its Phoenix Gold project near Red Lake. The company sought protection from its creditors on Oct. 20. Ernst & Young was appointed as the monitor.

A majority of the affected creditors had earlier voted to approve the plan on Dec. 2. Rubicon announced Dec. 20 that the restructuring process was complete and that the company has been notified by the TSX that its common shares will remain listed on the TSX under the symbol RMX. Rubicon shares will resume trading on Dec. 22.

Keep an eye on Dr Copper – by Staff (Mining Journal – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

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

Copper, often seen as a true indicator of global economic health due to its variety of end uses, shot up in value post-election on proposed US infrastructure spending and sound economic data out of China.

The price of contracts for copper delivered in three months’ time has risen from US$2.14 a pound on Comex a year ago to $2.5135/lb, according to Bloomberg, with a gain of more than 20% since the start of September.

Bloomberg columnist David Fickling said “there’s a funny thing” about the recent surge in copper prices, arguing a supply crunch rather than a demand surge was a better explanation for the rise.

114 workers safe after underground fire at Sask. potash mine (CBC News Saskatoon – December 20, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/

More than 100 workers at PotashCorp’s Allan mine are safe this morning after a fire underground. Yesterday afternoon, at around 3:30 p.m. CST, a fire started in a front-end loader in the mine. Nearby workers quickly put the fire out, but the area had already filled with smoke.

After fire alarms were triggered, all 114 workers underground at the time were sent to shelters while the smoke was cleared. “Fortunately, they got the fire out quickly,” said PotashCorp spokesperson Randy Burton. “It can become serious depending on the amount of smoke generated.”

Emergency response teams were sent out to vent the area and check on the safety of the workers. No one was hurt, although one worker was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.

Flawed diamond regulations fuelling child labour in Congo mines – campaigners – by Kieran Guilbert (Reuters U.K. – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://uk.reuters.com/

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The failure of European jewellery firms to scrutinise their supply chains and a flawed diamond certification scheme are fuelling child labour and sexual abuse in artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a campaign group said on Thursday.

Thousands of children work illegally in diamond mines in Congo’s diamond-rich Kasai region – mainly to pay for food and school fees – and girls who live around the mines are prey to rape, forced marriage and prostitution, according to Swedwatch.

Yet few jewellery firms have policies to assess the risk of child labour and abuses in their diamond supply chains, and many do not provide public information about efforts to operate responsibly, Swedwatch said in a report.

How federal politicians sheltered asbestos industry – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

https://www.thestar.com/

Has the phrase “better late than never” ever stood on a weaker truss than the Government of Canada’s decades-late decision to ban the manufacture, use, import and export of asbestos?

Successive federal governments — Liberal and Conservative — provided political shelter to companies mining chrysotile asbestos in Quebec, going so far as to fund the Chrysotile Institute whose purpose was to defend aggressively this particular type of asbestos as distinctly less hazardous than other forms of the magic mineral.

(A paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2008 called this argument “redolent of the tobacco industry’s playbook on light cigarettes.”) Occasionally, a politician would step out of line, only to be yanked back into asbestos-supporting formation.

Canada, U.S. announce ban on offshore oil, gas licenses in Arctic – by Dan Healing (Toronto Star – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

https://www.thestar.com/

CANADIAN PRESS – CALGARY—The federal government announced Tuesday plans to ban offshore oil and gas licensing in the Arctic, citing the need to protect the environment from future energy development, but the move was largely dismissed by industry observers as a weak gesture that won’t harm their interests.

The measure was part of a joint announcement with the U.S., which designated the bulk of its federally controlled waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean as indefinitely off-limits to future oil and gas leasing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s ban is intended to ensure a sustainable Arctic economy, preserve the region’s ecosystem and prevent future risks associated with offshore oil and gas activity — goals that earned applause from environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund.

Ottawa cools to Ring of Fire’s potential – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa has been throwing cold water on the Ring of Fire, a mineral deposit in Northern Ontario that was once thought to be worth more than $60-billion.

Since the federal Liberal Party came to power last year, the government has stonewalled requests to pay for infrastructure, lowered expectations for development and slashed its valuation for the deposit, according to internal Department of Natural Resources documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The skepticism among federal ranks has proven to be another barrier to mining the 5,000-square-kilometre crescent of mostly chromite in the boggy James Bay lowlands and boreal forest. Development of the Ring was already facing significant challenges: No permanent road access, no power, environmental concerns, a prolonged commodities slump and scores of unresolved issues with the nine First Nations groups that live in the region.

[Gold mining tradition] F.W. Schumacher’s Christmas generosity crossing generations – by Sarah Moore (Timmins Daily Press – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – A holiday tradition more than a century old continued on Tuesday as elementary school children received Christmas gifts courtesy of the late Frederick W. Schumacher.

Nearly 200 students with Schumacher addresses were greeted by members of the Schumacher Volunteer Fire Department inside the McIntyre Ballroom that evening, eager to tear into a beautifully wrapped present that was just for them.

Schumacher, a business man and well-known philanthropist, was a Danish native who eventually settled in the United States. He was a pharmacist by trade who would eventually get into the gold mining industry and acquire a number of properties in the Porcupine Gold Camp.

Ring-tailed lemurs face extinction amid sapphire-mining rush in Madagascar – by Ian Johnston (The Indpendent – December 21, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://www.independent.co.uk/

The ring-tailed lemur of Madagascar is “disappearing right under our noses” as the iconic animal is hunted and trapped to extinction and its forest home is destroyed by people hunting for sapphires.

Lemurs are the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet but it was thought the resourceful ring-tailed species – which featured in the hit cartoon film series Madagascar and the BBC’s recent Planet Earth II documentary – would be the last to die out.

However, despite their ability to survive in some of the harshest environments on the Indian Ocean island, they have been mostly reduced to small groups, researchers warned in a paper called Going, Going Gone: Is the Iconic Ring-railed Lemur Headed for Imminent Extirpation? in the journal Primate Conservation.

Amazon chooses Montreal for its Canadian data centre operations due to cheaper hydro costs than Ontario – by Vito Pilieci (National Post – December 20, 2016)

December 21, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Internet giant Amazon Web Services has opened a cluster of data centres near Montreal due to the ready availability and cost of hydro-electric power in Quebec.

The company, which is notoriously secretive about its data centres, said there are now at least two data centres just outside Montreal to offer web-based services to the “Canada Region.” Canada joins 15 other regions around the globe from which Amazon is running data services on behalf of clients.

Teresa Carlson, vice-president of public sector with Amazon Web Services, said the cost and availability of hydro-electric power is ultimately what made Amazon choose Quebec as its Canadian home. “We picked the area that we did because of the hydro power,” said Carlson. “We did find them (Quebec) to be very business friendly.”

JPMorgan-Led Fund Shines as Glencore Survives ‘Darkest Days’ – by Luzi-Ann Javier and Susanne Barton (Bloomberg News – December 20, 2016)

December 20, 2016

https://www.bloomberg.com/

When shares of mining companies including Freeport-McMoRan Inc. to Glencore Plc were collapsing last year, a small fund run by JPMorgan Asset Management chose to hold on. Now, it’s reaping the rewards of a metals rebound that’s turning bears into bulls.

Old Mutual-JPM Natural Resources Fund has delivered a return of 79 percent this year, beating all but two of the 150 funds it competes with in North America and Western Europe that are tracked by Bloomberg. Glencore, one of its biggest holdings, has tripled after plunging 70 percent in 2015. Freeport lost about as much last year, only to double in 2016.

“Even during the darkest days at the back end of last year and two weeks of January, we held in there with mining companies that people thought were going to go bust,” said James Sutton, who helps oversee $2.5 billion in natural resources assets run by JPMorgan, including Old Mutual.