Republic of Mining

Kirkland Lake Gold says fire scare at their mine was handled well – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.timminspress.com/

Kirkland Lake Gold is pleased with how professionally all their employees handled a fire scare at their mine on Monday afternoon. Within an hour of a potential fire being reported, all the underground workers had been accounted for and were gathered in the mine’s refuge stations waiting for the all-clear.

Vice-president of operations Chris Stewart said the situation could not have gone more smoothly.

“From out perspective, everything in the emergency response plan did exactly what it was supposed to do. Having everyone in a mine as spread out as ours reporting in and accounted for in one hour is certainly a benchmark time,” he said. “Overall, it turned out essentially to be a drill. But you don’t know that when you go down there.”

PoV: Ted Szilva made Sudbury a better place – by Don MacDonald (Sudbury Star – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Don MacDonald is the editor of the Sudbury Star.

Ted Szilva will be best known as the creator of the Big Nickel, an iconic landmark that now helps define Greater Sudbury for many Canadians.

Szilva, who died last week at the age of 81, was much more than the Big Nickel, however. He was a bit of a visionary who helped the city re-imagine itself.

A firefighter and not quite 30 when he opened the Big Nickel (a nine-metre or 30-foot replica of a 1951 Canadian nickel) in 1964, he went on to build an underground mine at the site, located on hill overlooking the intersection of Municipal Road 55 and Big Nickel Drive. He did so mostly on his own and with no support from municipal leaders at the time.

Indonesia hopes four new smelters complete in 2016 -mining official (Reuters U.S. – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

Indonesia hopes four new smelters will be completed in 2016, a mining ministry official said on Wednesday, as low commodity prices continue to create financial problems for the mining industry and shrink government returns.

Indonesia banned metal ore shipments in early 2014 to encourage firms to build smelters and shift exports from raw materials to higher-value finished metals. But the ban cost the country, the world’s top nickel ore exporter at the time and a major supplier of bauxite, billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Dozens of smelter projects have been delayed, many of them in nickel, as a result of the current downturn in commodity prices, and only five nickel smelters of a targeted 12 were completed last year.

WHO Tests Hair to Probe Uranium From Johannesburg Gold Mines – by Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg News – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The World Health Organization is collecting hair samples west of Johannesburg to see if residents near South Africa’s biggest city are suffering from excessive uranium pollution due to ore dumps from 130 years of gold mining.

The Geneva-based United Nations unit will analyze hair samples from about 1,600 people living in neighborhoods near mine-waste dumps, mainly west of Johannesburg, it said in an e-mailed response to questions. Uranium, which can cause cancer, can be ingested through drinking contaminated water or inhaling dust.

“The objective is to study the environmental exposure to uranium and its decay products of the population living in close proximity to gold mine tailing dumps in and around Johannesburg,” the WHO said. “These residue areas are often densely populated and create the potential for substantial levels of exposure to uranium.”

Why This Mining CEO Still Sees Triple-Digit Gold – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Although gold has seen an impressive rally since the start of the year, one mining executive still doesn’t rule out the possibility of prices falling back into triple digit territory.

Ian Ball, chief executive officer at Abitibi Royalties (TSX.V: RZZ) bought up the idea of $900 gold prices at the end of 2015 when prices were hovering just above multi-year lows; and, in a recent interview with Kitco News, he said that his outlook still hasn’t changed since markets are still bottoming out.

“What I said in December was that the market was in the bottom third or bottom 20% of its bear market and I think we are still within that range,” he said. Gold has made significant gains against a broad range of currencies in an environment of global negative bond yields, but Ball explained that investors still need to use caution when jumping into the gold market.

Space mining ready for lift off – by David Perri (Northern Miner – March 4, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

Mining and space exploration seem like two fields that couldn’t be further apart. Miners plunge deep into the earth’s crust, while space explorers seek to propel humankind in the opposite direction.

Early champions of space mining were often not taken too seriously. “There was a huge giggle factor,” said Dale Boucher, CEO of Deltion Innovations, a Sudbury-based firm that hopes to supply equipment for space miners.

Boucher spoke with The Northern Miner after meeting with Canadian ministers in Ottawa, where his pitch was simple: Canada, as a world leader in mining capability, should be involved in space mining.

BHP Billiton CEO Sets Sights on Possible Copper, Petroleum Acquisitions – by Rhiannon Hoyle (Wall Street Journal – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/

MELBOURNE, Australia— BHP Billiton Ltd. Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie has spent three years tackling the legacy of his predecessors’ hunger for major deals, selling unwanted assets and taking multibillion-dollar write-downs on its U.S. shale gas operations.

Now, he says the world’s biggest mining company by market capitalization has an appetite for acquisitions again.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Mackenzie said BHP is sizing up deals for petroleum and copper assets that could offer an immediate boost to profits amid what it now expects to be a prolonged period of low commodity prices.

N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines wants companies to stake online – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – March 15, 2016)

March 16, 2016

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

The N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines wants companies in the Northwest Territories to be able to stake mineral claims online, without having to go on the land.

The call comes as the territorial government prepares to set up its own rules — distinct from those inherited from the federal government after devolution — for how mineral claims are registered, explored and developed in the N.W.T.

The current regulations mean companies have to fly in and out of remote areas and mark the perimetre of their claims with a series of posts, a process deemed “onerous” by Tom Hoefer, the chamber of mines’ executive director.

Cliffs Natural Resources investors face more bad news: A class action lawsuit – by John Funk (Cleveland Plain Dealer – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.cleveland.com/

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Investors who still own stock in Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources face another round of bad news.

Their stock lost more than 12 percent of value Tuesday, closing at just $2.38 a share on the New York Stock Exchange, after two investors who previously bought unsecured bonds in the company filed a class action lawsuit.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in New York, alleges that Cliffs, still the nation’s larges iron ore mining company, gave big institutional bondholders and banks an opportunity to exchange their unsecured Cliffs notes for new unconditionally guaranteed notes that pay an 8 percent rate of interest and come due in 2020.

Output cuts halt nickel price fall, more mine closures needed – by Louise Heavens (Reuters U.S. – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – Nickel’s freefall may have halted as output cuts move the chronically oversupplied market towards deficit, but prices are unlikely to recover sharply unless more loss-making mines close.

Prices for the metal used to make stainless steel have crashed more than 40 percent since the start of 2015 on rising stockpiles and weak Chinese demand, leaving around 70 percent of producers losing money, according to consultants at CRU Group.

But cutbacks, at a time when demand is steadying, should boost benchmark prices on the London Metal Exchange, which recently hit 13-year lows at $7,550 a tonne. It is now around $8,525.

Soviet uranium legacy blights eastern EU – by Adrian Mogos and Michael Bird (Euobserver.com – March 14, 2016)

March 16, 2016

https://euobserver.com/

ROMANIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, GERMANY – The Soviet Union mined uranium across its empire for decades, leaving a legacy of environmental damage, social breakdown and widespread health issues. In the first of a two-part investigation, we reveal how the devastating effects are still being felt in Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic.

“We live here, with radon [radioactive gas] across the road and with chalk dust from down in the valley – God damn it – it will kill us all,” says 53-year-old Vasile Mocanu, a former miner.

He is describing how his life has been trapped between two sources of pollution – a uranium mine and a chalk mine. Baita Plai, an ex-Communist workers’ colony built by the Soviets in the 1950s, lies on the edge of the Transylvanian countryside, 500km north-west of Bucharest.

Surging Demand For Rechargeable Batteries Is Driving Business To South America – by Rosalba O’Brien and Rod Nickel (Huffington Post – March 15, 2016)

March 15, 2016

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Lithium is an essential component of many consumer tech products.

SANTIAGO/TORONTO, March 15 (Reuters) – Far from the soy and cattle that dominate its vast fertile pampas, Argentina harbors another valuable commodity that is rocketing in price and demand and luring newly welcomed foreign investors.

Lithium, the so-called “white petroleum,” drives much of the modern world. It forms a small but essentially irreplaceable component of rechargeable batteries, used in consumer devices like mobile phones and electric cars. It also has pharmaceutical and other applications.

Over half of the earth’s identified resources of the mineral are found in South America’s “lithium triangle,” an otherworldly landscape of high-altitude lakes and bright white salt flats that straddles Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

South African Mines-Dispute Case Starts With Third-Party Bid – by Andre Janse Van Vuuren (Bloomberg News – March 14, 2016)

March 15, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

A court dispute between South Africa’s Chamber of Mines and the Department of Mineral Resources about black shareholdings in mining companies started on Tuesday with arguments by a third party that seeks to set aside the country’s Mining Charter.

Malan Scholes Inc., a Johannesburg-based legal firm, is asking the High Court in Pretoria to be allowed to consolidate its case with that of the chamber, arguing there are similarities between its application and that of the mines lobby.

The chamber, which represents South Africa’s largest mining companies including Anglo American Plc and Glencore Plc, and the department are opposing Malan Scholes’ bid for a joint hearing.

HD Mining’s contentious Murray River coal project put on hold – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – March 14, 2016)

March 15, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VANCOUVER — A B.C. coal project that generated controversy over its plans to hire temporary foreign workers is being mothballed at least temporarily, with future operations hinging on test drilling results, environmental approvals and market conditions.

That means the 51 temporary foreign workers hired for HD Mining’s Murray River project over the past couple of years have left Tumbler Ridge and returned to China, marking the end of a journey that launched a federal court case and helped spur reforms to Canada’s temporary foreign worker program.

HD Mining has completed a bulk sample program and the extracted coal sample “is being tested for coal quality and marketability,” Jody Shimkus, HD Mining’s vice-president of environment and regulatory affairs, said Monday in an e-mail.

Plans move forward for rare earth elements mine on Labrador coast (CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador – March 14, 2016)

March 15, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Search Minerals, a mining and exploration company, is making plans for a rare earth elements mine on the southeast coast of Labrador.

The company, based in both British Columbia and Labrador, discovered the Port Hope Simpson Rare Earth Element District, a belt in the area about 70 kilometres long and up to eight kilometres wide.

are earth elements are used to make such things as batteries, electronics and magnets. Search Minerals president Greg Andrews said the company has received a preliminary economic assessment on its “Foxtrot” project, in the Fox Harbour area, to see if it’s economic to move into production.