Republic of Mining

Diocese of Quebec divests from fossil fuels, mining – by ANDRÉ FORGET (Anglican Journal – December 22, 2015)

December 23, 2015

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/

In mid-December, the diocese of Quebec completed a four-year process of divestment from fossil fuels and resource extraction, making it the first diocese in the Anglican Church of Canada to fully divest from both mining and fossil fuels.

In a report to the synod of the diocese of Quebec in November, Drainville noted that since the Church Society of the Diocese of Quebec passed a motion to divest from resource extraction holdings at its annual general meeting four years ago, $525,000 has been divested from gold and copper mining operations.

Following a subsequent motion in 2014 calling on the investment committee to get out of oil and gas, $1.72 million has been divested from fossil fuels.

You’re too bearish on China growth – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

China’s leaders in October outlined the direction of the world’s second largest economy over the next five years.

The country’s 13th five-year plan running from 2016 – 2020 is the first one approved by Xi Jinping who led a group on “comprehensively deepening reforms” to overhaul China’s investment-led economy into one driven by services and consumption.

The communique issued in October provides only the basic frameworks of programs and policies with a more detailed plan to be made public in March. But it gave some indication that Xi and company, unnerved by slowing economic growth, decided to put their money again on investment to re-energize the sagging economy.

NEWS RELEASE: ARIANNE PHOSPHATE RECEIVES MINISTERIAL DECREE FOR ITS LAC À PAUL PROJECT [QUEBEC]

December 22, 2015

http://www.arianne-inc.com/en/

Saguenay, Quebec – December 22, 2015 – (TSX VENTURE: DAN) (FRANKFURT: JE9N) (OTCBB: DRRSF), a development-stage phosphate mining company, advancing the Lac à Paul project in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, is today pleased to announce that its project has received approval from the Cabinet of the Government of Quebec.

“There could not have been a better way to end the year for Arianne and the region as a whole,” remarked Jean-Sebastien David, Arianne’s COO. “The Ministerial Decree represents the most significant milestone to date for the project and with it, Arianne now has the permission it needs to go ahead with the development of its proposed $ 1.2 billion phosphate project.

The board and the Arianne team want to thank the Government of Quebec for the confidence they have shown in this project through the issuance of the Decree and, of course, greatly appreciate the support we have received from the municipalities and organizations that have been behind this project.

BHP Billiton and partner Vale to launch external investigation into a dam disaster in Brazil that left 17 dead – by Robb M. Stewart (The Australian – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

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

BHP Billiton has pledged to release publicly the findings of a New York-based law firm hired to determine the cause of a catastrophic dam burst at a mine in Brazil last month.

The Australian mining company said it and venture partners Vale SA and Samarco Minerao SA had jointly hired US law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton to launch an external investigation into the cause of a breach of a mine-waste dam and a water dam at the iron-ore operation in Minas Gerais.

BHP said it planned to release the findings and also share the results with other resources companies.

Top Iron Ore Shipper Cuts 2016 Forecast by 19% as Glut Grows – by Jasmine Ng (Bloomberg News – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s biggest iron ore exporter cut its price forecast for next year by 19 percent as supply continues to swell and slowing growth in China hurts demand in the biggest user.

Prices will average $41.30 a metric ton in 2016 compared with $51.20 forecast in September, Australia’s Department of Industry, Innovation & Science said in a quarterly outlook Tuesday. The department cut its average price for 2015 by 4.7 percent to $50.40 a ton.

Iron ore, the country’s largest export earner, lost 43 percent this year as low-cost miners including Rio Tinto Group, BHP Billiton Ltd. and Vale SA pressed ahead with expansions to defend market share, feeding a glut as demand in China faltered.

Glencore and Anglo try to dig themselves out of trouble – by James Wilson and Neil Hume (Financial Times – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.ft.com/

When Glencore presented its latest debt reduction plans earlier this month, almost 1,000 phone lines were needed to let anxious investors listen in to chief executive Ivan Glasenberg. They had good reason to dial in: amid the crunching commodities downturn, shares in the mining and trading group have fallen 70 per cent this year.

News that Glencore had met 85 per cent of the debt cut target it set itself in September led one of its largest institutional shareholders, Evy Hambro of BlackRock, to say: “Thank you for a . . . call that is actually delivering on its plan, unlike some of the other things we have seen recently.”

Listeners knew exactly what he meant. Just two days earlier, Anglo American, another laggard among large-cap mining groups, had delivered a strategy that was much less well received.

Why It’s So Hard to Put a Price on the World’s Biggest Diamonds – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

When miners unearth the world’s biggest and rarest of diamonds — like the golf-ball-sized, 357-carat rock found this year in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho — figuring out what they are worth can prove almost as difficult.

Gem Diamonds Ltd., which specializes in digging up stones that only a few billionaires are likely to buy, has been taking some unusual steps to confront that dilemma. The London-based mine owner is replicating on a small scale what middlemen normally do.

It cuts, polishes and re-sells some diamonds to get a better sense of what the market is for the world’s biggest ones. In September, the company had its biggest sale ever when its prized discovery from Lesotho fetched $19.3 million.

Fission Uranium nears landmark $82-million investment from state-owned Chinese giant CGN Mining Company Ltd – Peter Koven (National Post – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://business.financialpost.com/

Fission Uranium Corp. is closing in on a landmark deal with a Chinese company that would represent China’s first direct investment into a Canadian uranium firm.

Fission and state-owned CGN Mining Company Ltd. have signed a letter of intent for CGN to acquire a 19.9 per cent stake in Fission for $82.2 million. The two sides also plan to enter an offtake agreement in which CGN would buy uranium output from Fission’s Patterson Lake South (PLS) property in Saskatchewan.

Companies often sign letters of intent that never turn into firm deals, but Fission chief executive Dev Randhawa said it is “highly likely” this transaction will close next month. CGN announced the deal publicly on Monday, and it put the money in trust with Fission’s lawyers, he added.

Opinion: Why the gold sector should ignore price forecast – by Stephen de Jong (Vancouver Sun – December 21, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Stephen de Jong is CEO of Vancouver-based Integra Gold Corp.

This is the time of year when analysts roll out their economic forecasts for the New Year. For those who keep a close eye on gold prices, this can be a painful process.

It’s been another tough 12 months for the yellow metal, with prices falling for the third consecutive year — down about 10 per cent in 2015 alone. Prices touched a high in the neighbourhood of $1,300 and, as the year drew to close, they neared six-year lows around $1050.

That’s a big dive from the heady days of 2011, when gold hit over $1,900 an ounce. What made things even more difficult for the sector in 2015 was the price volatility.

No charges to be laid in Mount Polley dam breach – by Les Leyne (Victoria Times Colonist – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.timescolonist.com/

Part of the report by the chief inspector of mines on the Mount Polley tailings-dam failure was devoted to “root cause analysis,” an investigative process developed to look at all the factors that go into engineering failures.

The report cites the Challenger space-shuttle catastrophe and the Three Mile Island nuclear-plant crisis as examples of multiple points of weaknesses in systems, and failures all down the line to understand them.

“Another common trait in structural or system failures over time is the cascading nature of the failure itself,” said the report. “Rarely is there a single physical failure in isolation. One event or condition will trigger or enable another.”

UPDATE 2-Peru sees 66 pct spike in copper output next year thanks to Las Bambas (Reuters U.S. – December 21, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

Dec 21 Peru’s government said on Monday that copper output in the world’s third biggest producer should rise 65.5 percent in 2016 to about 2.5 million tonnes after MMG Ltd’s massive Las Bambas project starts operations in February.

Ongoing talks with leaders in communities where protests against Las Bambas turned deadly in September have been positive and have not held up the $7.4 billion project, Energy and Mines Minister Rosa Maria Ortiz said.

The Las Bambas mine, in the highland region Apurimac, should produce between 250,000 and 300,000 tonnes of copper in 2016, Ortiz said.

The Golden Age Of Coal In China Is Over – by Nick Cunningham (Oil Price.com – December 20, 2015)

December 21, 2015

http://oilprice.com/

China’s coal consumption may have peaked in 2013, and with it, so have the coal industry’s fortunes.

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that preliminary data suggests that China’s coal consumption in 2015 is lower than 2013 levels. Slower economic growth, lower energy-intensity of growth, and a campaign to reduce air pollution have severely dented the prospects for coal in China, the report finds.

China consumes half of the world’s coal, so what happens in China tends to dictate what happens to coal markets around the world. China tripled its coal consumption since 2000, and it burns about five times as much coal as the United States and India, or about two and a half times as much as those two countries combined.

Editorial: Ontario gov’t criticized by Auditor General over Ring of Fire file – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 21, 2015)

December 21, 2015

http://www.northernminer.com/

With the Auditor General of Ontario Bonnie Lysyk newly releasing her Annual Report 2015, it’s been the Ontario government’s mismanagement of the province’s electricity generation system that has grabbed the biggest headlines across the country, but she also has a fair amount of criticism in the report on how the government has overseen mining and mineral investment in Ontario, particularly with respect to the Ring of Fire chromite camp.

Lysyk notes Ontario is Canada’s largest mineral producer, accounting for a quarter of all Canadian production, and has one of the lowest tax rates for miners, and yet the Fraser Institute’s survey of mining and exploration companies ranks Ontario ninth among Canadian provinces and territories in investment attractiveness for mineral exploration.

Some of her criticism isn’t too surprising, and reflects the problems of any large bureaucracy such as Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, which has an annual budget of $41 million and 270 full-time employees.

COLUMN-Hoping your rivals will die – The 2016 commodity story – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – December 21, 2015)

December 21, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

Dec 21 – If 2015 was the year in which the growing oversupply of key commodities led to a rout in prices, will 2016 bring the point of capitulation, leading to consolidation and the start of recovery?

That would certainly be the hope of many beleaguered commodity producers, be they members of OPEC, shale gas drillers in North America or the big companies that bet their futures on what they thought would be China’s endless appetite for coal, iron ore, copper and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

But the problem with hoping for a rationalisation of supply is that everybody wants someone else to shut down or cut production. Everywhere in commodity markets, producers are still following the tactics that have largely failed for the past few years.

BHP Billiton eyeing acquisitions as it considers dividend cut – by James Wilson and Neil Hume (Financial Times – December 20, 2015)

December 21, 2015

http://www.ft.com/

London – BHP Billiton is stepping up its hunt for acquisitions or new projects, hoping to take advantage of distressed prices at a low point in the commodity cycle and increasing the likelihood that the world’s most valuable mining company will make a dividend cut next year.

BHP is determined not to miss a chance to buy choice assets if rival miners are forced into sales as they try to survive the worst commodities downturn in a decade. The Anglo-Australian miner is looking for copper and deepwater oil projects.

But BHP is acutely aware of potential stresses on its own balance sheet, and particularly its pledge to maintain a strong credit rating, if it were to strike deals.