Republic of Mining

Indonesia mining export rule changes needs law revision (Reuters U.S. – December 15, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

Dec 15 Indonesia needs to revise its mining law to ease a ban on mineral ore exports and is unlikely to meet a deadline of early next year for the change, senior politicians warned on Thursday.

The ore shipments ban, which requires miners to build smelters to process ore locally and halt mineral exports from next month, was implemented in January 2014, although last minute amendments were made to ease its impact.

A revision could allow miners such as the local unit of Freeport McMorRan Inc to export copper concentrate beyond next year’s Jan. 12 deadline. But there was little scope to change the export regulation until the existing law was changed, Luhut Pandjaitan, who oversees energy and mineral resources, said.

Nickel clue to ‘dinosaur killer’ asteroid – by Jonathan Amos (British Broadcasting Corporation – December 13, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://www.bbc.com/

Scientists say they have a clue that may enable them to find traces of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs in the very crater it made on impact. This pointer takes the form of a nickel signature in the rocks of the crater that is now buried under ocean sediments in the Gulf of Mexico.

An international team has just drilled into the 200km-wide depression. It hopes the investigation can help explain why the event 66 million years ago was so catastrophic.

Seventy-five percent of all life, not just the dinosaurs, went extinct. The UK-US led team gave an update on its research here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The group is currently running all manner of lab tests on the hundreds of metres of core pulled up from under the Gulf in April and May.

[Sudbury Basin] Norman West find ‘promising’ – Glencore – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – December 15, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Norman West, located north of Capreol, is Glencore’s current pearl in the oyster in the Sudbury area, city councillors were told Tuesday.

“We got a pretty significant hit there last year and we’ve been following up ever since, and it’s looking more promising by the day,” said Peter Xavier, vice president of Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations. “There’s still quite a bit of drilling to do from surface before we get to the next step.”

While the local operations are solid, Xavier did point out a few challenges the company faces. For example, low nickel prices and high hydro costs, as well as regulatory uncertainty around climate change and emissions can cause headaches.

Ontario’s energy fiasco needs a fix, and a new report from the Chamber of Commerce is a good start – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – December 14, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Ontario’s electricity disaster is now so well known that everybody takes the grim facts for granted: Absurdly high prices, a billion-dollar smart grid boondoggle, huge overcapacity problems, energy poverty among consumers, hundreds of millions paid annually to companies not to produce electricity. Less well known is what some of the solutions might be.

A new report released Wednesday by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce outlines some ideas on how to fix the fiasco, including the welcome idea of getting the politicians out of the business of making decisions on energy supply. But that and other ideas from the chamber are unlikely to be enough for a system that needs radical reform.

The chamber’s report is aimed at influencing the province’s 2017 Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP), which in practice is a quasi-Stalinist attempt to come up with regular 20-year revisable Gosplans for the province’s electricity system.

Stampede to invest in lithium mines threatens price gains – by Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – December 15, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – A rush to invest in new and expanded mines for lithium, a key ingredient in batteries used in electric cars, means material will flood the market just as fresh demand kicks in, potentially curbing price gains.

While demand for lithium batteries is due to soar, the market is on course for a global surplus next year or 2018 as miners gear up to expand output – overwhelming demand for the commodity by electric automakers such as Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA.O).

It’s not a new phenomenon. Other commodities have seen similar excitement about the future, such as uranium and rare earths. Investors chased bullish scenarios only to be disappointed when prices crashed due to excess supply or less than expected demand.

Arrested Development: How a high school student helped block Quebec’s uranium industry – by Damon van der Linde (Financial Post – December 15, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

MISTISSINI, Que. — Hunting grouse on a snowy road that cuts through the forest north of his home in the Cree community of Mistissini, Justice Debassige reflects on why, as a 17-year-old high school student in 2012, he started a petition against a uranium exploration project 215 kilometres away.

“I read research on how it damages the land and the water, so that was what drew me in,” he said, while searching for birds down the road towards the now-shuttered site owned by Boucherville, Que.-based Strateco Resources Inc. “It’s something to really think about when we’re out here.”

Debassige said he couldn’t have imagined at the time that his petition would be the catalyst for a complete moratorium against exploration of the radioactive mineral across Quebec, result in a $200-million lawsuit by Strateco Resources against the government and pit the federal nuclear safety agency against a provincial environmental commission.

Trudeau’s climate ‘deal’: all pain, no gain – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

How much is moral leadership worth? We’ll never know for sure. What we do know is that the price tag will be steep. Justin Trudeau’s new climate deal with the provinces will cost Canadians many, many billions, maybe more. Some will come directly from our pockets in the form of carbon taxes.

Some of it will disappear by stealth, swallowed up in complicated cap-and-trade schemes, infrastructure investments, clean-tech subsidies and a whole thicket of new building codes and regulations. No cost-benefit analysis has been provided, or ever will be, because too much is subject to negotiation, and too much is impossible to measure even if you tried.

Mr. Trudeau is not a man to set his sights too low. His goal is to fundamentally change the way Canada produces and consumes energy. But his climate deal is not so much a master plan as a dog’s breakfast. The only thing we know for sure is that even if Canada were to miraculously achieve its 2030 target for reductions in carbon emissions, the net impact on global warming would be zero.

NEWS RELEASE: Arizona Mining Comments on Misleading Article

December 15, 2016

VANCOUVER, BC–(Marketwired – December 14, 2016) – Arizona Mining Inc. (AZ.TO) (“Arizona Mining” or the “Company”) is responding to the latest article published by the Global Mining Observer that is aimed at discrediting Arizona Mining and its Taylor Project.

The latest article quotes unnamed sources giving generic opinions about the marketability of zinc concentrates containing manganese. Global Mining Observer then takes these general comments and attempts to apply them to Arizona Mining to discredit what the Company has announced to date on its Taylor deposit.

As previously disclosed, Arizona Mining has done initial bench-scale metallurgical work on the various types of ore found at the Taylor deposit which does not yet reflect cleaner stages, regrinds or any optimization, which may reduce the manganese levels. The same initial results show very low iron and cadmium contents and negligible mercury and arsenic, which are other common undesirable elements.

Mining warfare in WWI – by Cecilia Keating (CIM Magazine – November 2016)

December 15, 2016

https://www.cim.org/en/

n the First World War trenches cleaved Europe from the North Sea to Switzerland. While the battlefield above ground was static, a secret subterranean war raged. The British Army began to form specialist army units of trained tunnellers in 1915, initially recruiting men from poor coal mining communities in Britain.

Their job was to create a labyrinth of underground tunnels that extended under enemy lines and could be packed with explosives, and to dig ‘camouflets’, smaller mines used to collapse enemy tunnels. They were also tasked with building extensive networks of tunnels behind Allied lines, allowing for undetected movement of men and supplies.

Faced with growing demand for skilled miners, the British government appealed to Canada to raise tunnelling ‘companies’ in September 1915. The first was mobilised in Pembroke, Ontario and recruited men from mining centres in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The second was comprised of men from Alberta and British Columbia. The third was formed of Canadian miners who were already fighting in Europe.

Nickel supply shock, ad-hoc – by Tim Treadgold (Mining Journal – December 14, 2016)

December 14, 2016

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

From less than US$4 a pound just before Christmas last year the nickel price has risen by more than 30% to around US$5.13/lb with a recent peak of US$5.24/lb earlier this month.

But, if you look at a graph of the nickel price over the past 60 days it is obvious that traders are uncertain whether to bid the metal higher, or push it lower, with US$5/lb the price around which they’re circling while politicians in the Philippines (and Indonesia) decide whether to encourage or discourage nickel exports to China.

As might be expected when it comes to political factors investment banks are uncertain which way nickel will move when the Philippines Government releases the delayed final audit of its mining industry, perhaps as soon as tomorrow (December 15).

[TMAC’s high-grade Nunacut gold mine] Hope for the future – by Correy Baldwin (CIM Magazine – November 2016)

December 14, 2016

http://magazine.cim.org/en/

TMAC’s high-grade Hope Bay gold project in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut is nearing start up. Beyond the focus on getting the processing plant running and reaching commercial production in the first quarter of 2017, the company has its sights set on an even more ambitious goal: making the region Canada’s next gold-mining district.

In many ways Hope Bay is evidence of new market confidence. When TMAC went public in July 2015, it was the first mining IPO on the TSX since 2012. When Hope Bay’s previous owner, Newmont, approached Terry MacGibbon (now TMAC’s executive chairman) with the project in late August 2012, MacGibbon was immediately interested – the site came with three known deposits, plenty of previous exploratory drilling, and a huge amount of infrastructure already in place.

MacGibbon recruited Catharine Farrow (TMAC’s CEO) and Gord Morrison (president and chief technology officer) – former team members from FNX, the Sudbury-based mining company MacGibbon started in 1997. “We sort of put the old band back together,” he said. By December, Newmont and the newly formed TMAC had an agreement in principal, and a final agreement in January 2013.

Editorial: Canadian government moves to quash thermal coal miners – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 13, 2016)

December 14, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

In November the Canadian government announced sweeping plans to phase out coal-fired power generation across Canada by 2030. Coal miners and electricity consumers across Canada can only be left wondering whether the same Liberal party deep-thinkers that brought economic havoc and skyrocketing electricity rates to Ontario will do the same thing to the rest of Canada, and particularly to the coal-reliant Western provinces.

The federal government’s coal-power phase-out announcement comes on the heels of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s separate proposed carbon tax that would cost $10 per tonne in 2018 and rise $10 per tonne each year to $50 per tonne by 2022 — a plan that has been bitterly opposed by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.

(According to pollster Angus Reid, energy realist Wall has by far the highest approval rating among Canada’s premiers at 58%, while Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who has presided over the implementation of the province’s disastrous Green Energy Act, has an approval rating of only 16% — or 8 points lower than George W. Bush at his nadir.)

Tillerson, Perry in Trump administration means Canada’s energy sector has friends in high places – by Claudia Cattaneo (Financial Post – December 14, 2016)

December 14, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Canada’s oil and gas industry would have friends in Washington’s highest places with Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and Rick Perry as Energy Secretary.

United States President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Tillerson, who was expected to retire in March as CEO of ExxonMobil Corp., is his choice to head the State Department and praised him as a successful international dealmaker who leads a global operation.

“He will be a forceful and clear-eyed advocate for America’s vital national interests and help reverse years of misguided foreign policies and actions that have weakened America’s security and standing in the world,” Trump said in a statement. “His relationships with leaders all over the world are second to none.”

[Australia] Lithium creatures are stirring – by Staff (Mining Journal – December 14, 2016)

December 14, 2016

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

Fair to say there aren’t many Christmas cards being exchanged between the offices of Lepidico, Lithium Australia, Strategic Metallurgy and newly renamed Parkway Minerals, despite the ‘close’ connections of key figures at the various companies over the years.

Instead it’s ASX statements carrying each other’s names that are flying back and forth at the moment, with legal documents in tow.

Lithium microcap Lepidico’s recent annual general meeting in Perth heard the company would be maintaining a business-as-usual approach to developing its proprietary L-Max process while an ongoing legal stoush with rival junior Lithium Australia bubbled away below the surface.

Soviet Uranium Mines Still Have Deadly Impact in Kyrgyzstan – by Ryskeldi Satke (The Diplomat – December 13, 2016)

December 14, 2016

http://thediplomat.com/

MAILUU-SUU, Kyrgyzstan — The remote town of Mailuu Suu in South Kyrgyzstan is known for a Soviet legacy that still haunts the local population of more than 22,000.

Residents of Mailuu Suu commonly say that the very first Soviet atomic bomb was made out of locally extracted uranium in the late 1940s. The township is surrounded by uranium tailings and radioactive dumps that have been of greatest concern to the country’s neighbor, Uzbekistan, for decades.

The gravest dilemma for the Kyrgyz government is related to the frequent landslides in the areas along the river of Mailuu Suu where the Soviet government kept radioactive waste from the uranium mining. The glaciers of the southern Tian Shan feed this river, which flows directly to the neighboring republic of Uzbekistan in the Ferghana Valley.