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Death, extortion stalk workers at Canadian mine in Colombia – by James Bargent (Toronto Star – December 17, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

SEGOVIA, COLOMBIA—It is nine in the evening and there is a knock on the door of Andres Bedoya’s house. He opens to find a skinny teenager. The youth raises a revolver to Bedoya’s head and fires.

Bedoya had no enemies, no debts and no links to the armed groups that plague this part of northern Colombia. His only crime was to work in the mines of Canadian mining giant Gran Colombia Gold.

Bedoya was the first to die in a terror campaign waged in Segovia late last year by Colombia’s most powerful criminal group, a paramilitary mafia known as the Urabenos. Their target was the riches produced in Gran Colombia’s mines. But it was ordinary miners who paid the price in blood.

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First-ever mining tourism project gives a cutting edge to Vidarbha – by Vinita Chaturvedi (Times of India – December 17, 2016)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

It all started in November 2015 when Western Coalfields Limited opened its mines for the tourists in Maharashtra, a concept that was visualised in March 2015. And now, a year down the line, it will be taken to the next level as WCL and Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation get ready to sign a memorandum of understanding tomorrow in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and tourism minister Jaykumar Rawal. We track its far-reaching implications…

General manager of MTDC, Swati Kale shares, “Mining tourism that is popular in countries like Chile and Australia, is a novel concept for India. We are sure, along with a lot of Indian tourists, it would also attract several foreign tourists. This tie-up with WCL will put Vidarbha on world tourism map.”

This is the first ever eco-mining project in India, shares the managing director of WCL, Rajiv Ranjan Mishra. He goes on to add, “We have opened two mines for tourists — opencast mine at Gondegaon and underground mine at Saoner.

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The mining industry two years on – by David Humphreys (Mining Journal – December 12, 2016)

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

Two years ago, I completed the manuscript for my book The Remaking of the Mining Industry. I judged that by 2014 the great commodities boom which started in 2004 was well and truly over and that it was an appropriate moment to take stock of what had happened during the boom years and why.

A lot has happened in the intervening two years. So, with the release of a paperback edition of the book,** I thought it might be interesting to check back on whether some of the assertions made in the book still hold up.

Not entirely unsurprisingly, the industry took a beating through 2015 as the global economy slowed and commodity prices tanked. Companies sought to shore up their balance sheets by squeezing out costs and curtailing exploration and capital spend. In February 2016, BHP Billiton made the landmark announcement it was ending the progressive dividend policy which had been in place for 15 years.

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[Grenville Thomas] ‘Wind farms are a load of hot air!’ says Swansea-born ​multi-millionaire mining magnate (South Wales Evening Post – December 18, 2016)

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE mining magnate and Swansea boy made good Grenville Thomas has voiced his opposition to a wind farm that threatens to overshadow his childhood home.

Although now living in the Canadian city of Vancouver, having made his fortune harvesting the natural resources of the vast country, the 74-year-old has never forgotten his roots and is even said to have built an exact replica of the Red Lion in Morriston, which his great-grandmother used to run.

Mr Thomas, who started his working life as a coal miner in his home city, has sent a message of support to campaigners who tried to block a new wind farm being built to the north of Swansea on Mynydd y Gwair.

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China gets an all-clear from the Taliban to mine for copper in Afghanistan – by Mariam Amini (CNBC.com – December 16, 2016)

http://www.cnbc.com/

The Taliban say they’re giving China the green light to restart a $3 billion mining project, but Afghanistan’s legal government says the militant group is just blowing smoke.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan directs all its Mujahideen to help in the security of all national projects that are in the higher interest of Islam and the country,” the Taliban announced on Nov. 29, adding that a massive copper mine called Mes Aynak is among the sites it is “committed to safeguarding.”

Mes Aynak was signed over to China’s state-owned Metallurgical Group Corporation in 2008.Speaking to CNBC on Friday, the Afghan government dismissed the Taliban’s announcement.

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Searching BC Ghost Towns for Traces of Chinese Miners – by Sarah Berman (Vice.com – December 17, 2016)

http://www.vice.com/

British Columbia’s abandoned mining towns are full of untold stories. Sometimes you just have to dig through some racist bullshit to find them.

That’s what anthropologist, historian and ghost town expert Laura Cuthbert told me—though admittedly in much politer terms—after a recent trip to Coalmont, Blakeburn and Granite City in the province’s southern interior. Once mining outposts populated by thousands of people, fires, mining accidents and rail contract changes left the settlements virtually empty by 1930.

Though the official plaques say white miners “struck it rich” at Granite City in 1885, there’s evidence Chinese miners were already working there for 25 years before. “The Chinese history in BC isn’t properly known. It isn’t in the BC Archives,” she told VICE. “There were all these families we’ll never really know the names of.”

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Advanced Black Lung Cases Surge In Appalachia – by Howard Berkes (National Public Radio – December 15, 2016)

http://www.npr.org/

Across Appalachia, coal miners are suffering from the most serious form of the deadly mining disease black lung in numbers more than 10 times what federal regulators report, an NPR investigation has found.

The government, through the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, reported 99 cases of “complicated” black lung, or progressive massive fibrosis, throughout the country the last five years.

But NPR obtained data from 11 black lung clinics in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, which reported a total of 962 cases so far this decade. The true number is probably even higher, because some clinics had incomplete records and others declined to provide data.

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Vale opens huge new iron ore mine in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest (Reuters U.S. – December 17, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

Brazil’s Vale SA on Saturday inaugurated its biggest mining project ever, lowering costs in a cut-throat market and reasserting its place as the world’s biggest iron ore producer.

The S11D mine in the Amazonian state of Para will add 75 million tonnes of production when it reaches peak output in four years, lifting Vale over Australia’s Rio Tinto, which had rivaled its output after years of stagnation.

Vale Chief Executive Murilo Ferreira said at the inaugural ceremony that the company had staked its future on the giant mining project even as iron ore prices plunged in recent years.

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In Chats, Silver ‘Mafia’ Traders Flexed Muscle, Drew Blades – by Christian Berthelsen (Bloomberg News – December 13, 2016)

http://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — Until 2014, the global reference price for silver and other precious metals was set each day in a phone call or at a meeting with traders at a handful of banks, a century-old ritual known as the London Fix. Deutsche Bank AG was one of the banks.

As early as 2008, one of its traders began conspiring with a trader at Fortis Bank, via electronic chat, to manipulate prices, according to court documents filed by silver investors seeking to broaden their claims that the market was rigged.

“Cant wait for another day when we get the bulldozer out of the garage on gold and sil,” the Fortis trader wrote on Feb. 25, 2008. “Haha yeah,” responded the Deutsche Bank trader, in a chat-room transcript included in court papers.

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The top 20 most influential people (Mining Journal – December 19, 2016)

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

The inclusion of those at the top of this year’s hierarchy of mining’s most influential was not debated within the Mining Journal offices but their positioning was the subject of vigorous discussion. Meanwhile, it was the activity at the margin – where individuals are included or omitted – that generated the most heated arguments.

1. Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China: We use Xi (pictured right, second from left) as a proxy for Chinese economic policy. That being the case, it is difficult to imagine the Chinese state being usurped as the biggest influence on the mining sector for several years.

The numbers clearly back up this selection, with China consuming more than 40% of the world’s copper, about half the world’s nickel, aluminium, and coal, and more than 70% of seaborne iron ore.

As if China’s importance needed further practical evidence, 2016 has provided plenty of supporting data.

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Why De Beers is Flooding a Subarctic Diamond Mine After 8 Years – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – December 16, 2016)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Anglo American Plc’s De Beers will flood a massive diamond mine located beneath a subarctic lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories after failing to find a buyer.

De Beers will begin inundating tunnels at its Snap Lake mine in early January, it said in a statement distributed late Thursday. In April, it put the site on care and maintenance, saying it would decide whether the mine could be made viable in the next year. The company hired Bank of Montreal as an adviser to sell it, but no agreement could be reached.

The rich diamond deposit beneath Snap Lake is in a remote area 220 kilometers (137 miles) northeast of Yellowknife. Since it opened in 2008, it has never turned a profit, plagued by engineering challenges related to keeping the site dry. It was originally expected to operate until 2028.

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China, South Africa to match mine wits – by Staff (Mining Journal – December 16, 2016)

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

South Africa and China will look to match – or possibly exceed – Australia’s leading position in underground mine communications and geospatial informatics through the extended mining research partnership between the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT).

Wits and CUMT earlier this month established the Joint International Research Laboratory of China-Africa Mining Geospatial Informatics at a ceremony in Xuzhou, China.

The collaboration, underway since January 2013, has directed research funds into underground communication systems, risk measurement through sensors, risk modelling and prediction of harm, but the new initiative will focus on accurately locating workers relative to mine risks, using GPS-like underground positioning.

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A “New” Gold Camp in the Making? – by Christopher Ecclestone (InvestorIntel.com – December 14, 2016)

http://investorintel.com/

One seldom gets to name a planet or star, a new species of plant or animal, a street or a town. In the mining world new mining camps are relatively rare phenomena too so getting to name a “new” mining camp is something of an honour.

Indeed it could be like a staking rush if anyone was actually noticing that an area with great potential is developing and remains unnamed as yet. However, that begs the question as to at what point a couple of disparate prospects and projects start to crystallise into a new district.

If Signature Resources Ltd.’s (TSXV: SGU | OTCQB: SGGTF) Lingman Lake project was alone out there in the Ontario/Manitoba borderlands or if it was solely greenfield then naming the area the “Red Sucker Lake Camp” would be jumping the gun but in fact its property was mined in the 1940s, made a false start at resumed production in the 1990s, and now the sizeable Monument Bay project in the hands of Yamana is making the area almost crowded (we jest) in comparison to recent decades.

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Osisko raises $14 million for Québec exploration – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – December 14, 2016)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Osisko Mining has raised $14 million in exploration funds through a private placement of flow-through shares. Dundee Securities Ltd. was the sole agent in connection with the offering.

The funds will be used for exploration expenses at the company’s properties in Québec.

In addition to its Québec properties, Osisko has properties in the Larder Lake mining division, including the Jonpol and Garrcon deposits on the Garrison property, the Buffonta past-producing mine, and the Gold Pike mine property. The corporation also holds interests and options in a number of additional properties in Northern Ontario.

In July, Osisko conducted a 20,000-metre drill program at its Garrison property, located 100 kilometres east of Timmins.

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Mining supply sector will continue to grow – by David Robinson (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – December 2016)

http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

In a world where everything is changing, it can be hard to keep track of the currents that matter most. It is especially hard in the mining supply industry, which depends on a mining sector that flaps around like a kite on a string. Falling metal prices can seem like the end of the world for mining companies and their suppliers.

Prices have certainly slumped as ballooning supply met slowing demand, but despite the short-term pain, talk of the end of the supercycle for metals is just misguided. Metal production will continue to grow because demand will grow.

Forecasts still show three billion more people will be looking for new homes in cities by 2050. Furthermore, the British Geological Society reports that the world’s output of smelter copper increased by 22 per cent between 2013 and 2014 alone. Bismuth output jumped by 21 per cent and mercury by just under 21 per cent.

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