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Biggest Coal Exporter Says Climate Change Won’t Strand Assets – by Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – April 28, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc, the top exporter of coal used in power stations, expects efforts to curb climate change by keeping its fossil-fuel reserves in the ground to fail in the face of world energy demand.

Shareholders won’t be “prevented from realizing the full value of Glencore’s fossil fuel assets,” Ivan Glasenberg, 58, Glencore’s billionaire chief executive officer, said Tuesday.

His comments are a snub to a growing campaign that wants investors to shun fossil fuels that cause climate change. The world can’t safely extract all its oil and coal reserves, meaning some will end up as worthless stranded assets, campaigners say. Investors from Stanford University to the British Medical Association plan to cut fossil fuel holdings.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are among those defending their interests with the argument that the only way the world can feed its appetite for cheap, reliable energy is by burning fossil fuels. Coal supplies the world with about 30 percent of its main energy needs and more than 40 percent of its electricity, according to the World Coal Association. Global coal output reached a record 7.8 billion metric tons in 2013.

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Canadian, American groups call on B.C. to end underwater storage of mine tailings – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – April 28, 2015)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Mines minister says that is not going happen in the province, or likely anywhere in Canada

Dozens of Canadian and American environmental groups, First Nations and businesses, as well as scientists and individuals, have called on the B.C. government to end the use of storing mine waste under water and behind earth-and-rock dams.

But Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett said that is not going to happen in British Columbia. “I don’t think that’s in the cards for B.C. — or any other province in Canada — to adopt a policy where all you can use to manage tailings is dry-stack tailings,” Bennett said in an interview.

The demand from the U.S. and Canadian groups — sent in a letter Tuesday to Bennett and B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak — came as a result of Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley tailings dam failure last summer.

The dam collapse released millions of cubic metres of water and tailings — finely-ground rock waste containing potentially toxic metals — into the Quesnel Lake watershed in the B.C. Interior.

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Commentary: The shifting liability landscape for Canadian miners abroad – by Young Park and Rick Moscone (Northern Miner – April 29, 2015)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

Two recent lawsuits brought in British Columbia by foreign plaintiffs against two Canadian mining companies for alleged human rights abuses abroad have raised the stakes for mining projects in foreign jurisdictions.

On June 18, 2014, seven Guatemalan men sued Tahoe Resources Inc. alleging that private security forces hired by Tahoe’s Guatemalan subsidiary opened fire on them in San Rafael Los Flores. On Nov. 20, 2014, three Eritrean refugees sued Nevsun Resources Ltd. Alleging they were forced to work at a mine in Eritrea under threat of torture by Eritrea’s ruling party.

These lawsuits appear to be inspired by the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on July 22, 2013 in Choc v Hudbay Minerals Inc, the first case against a Canadian mining company over alleged human rights abuse abroad that was permitted to go to trial in Canada. In light of this recent litigation, it may be worthwhile for Canadian mining companies to revisit Hudbay, to understand how plaintiffs are now using Hudbay to frame their claims and to consider a risk management plan to mitigate the risks raised by Hudbay and the litigation it has spawned.

Three related actions were brought by thirteen Guatemalan Mayan Q’eqchi’ plaintiffs against Hudbay in Ontario for human rights abuses allegedly committed by private security forces working for Hudbay’s Guatemalan subsidiary, CGN.

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Flin Flon region remains key for growing Hudbay – by Jonathon Naylor (Flin Flon Reminder – April 28, 2015)

http://www.thereminder.ca/

As Hudbay commences a new chapter as a truly international company, David Garofalo is taken aback by the whispers of concern.

From Flin Flon and Snow Lake come worries that with his full-throttle expansion into Peru, and eventually the southern US, Garofalo is forsaking Hudbay’s traditional heartland in northern Manitoba.

“I’m surprised to hear it because when I was hired the first thing I did was put two mines into construction in Manitoba before we put any money into work anywhere else,” says Garofalo with a gentle laugh.

Those two mines, of course, are the massive Lalor mine near Snow Lake and its much smaller cousin, Reed mine, situated between Snow Lake and Flin Flon.

Between them the mines cost about $500 million and helped solidify Hudbay’s longer-term presence in northern Manitoba.

Hudbay is now working to expand known reserves at Lalor, its preeminent Manitoba asset, but the real wild card is Flin Flon’s 777 mine.

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Hold the nickel price elation – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – April 28, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Beware promises of price booms.

There’s been some salivation over the spot nickel price lately. It’s beaten to smithereens, down from around $9/lb a year ago to well under $6/lb in recent weeks.

Indeed, nickel has “surged” in recent days bringing it just over $6/lb from about $5.60/lb a week ago. That move has piqued market interest in a metal heavily hammered in the past year or so.

Yet it’s worth checking excitement about any advertised boom in prices, especially with lofty targets (say back to $10/lb or more as nickel traded in 2010-2011).

For one, nickel supply hardly seems to be hurting at the moment, despite export restrictions in Indonesia. With supply from the Philippines bridging the gap, for now, few analysts predict giant supply holes in the market near term.

Credit Suisse assesses nickel as showing a “near-balanced market in 2015″ that may slide into deficit next year assuming higher cost nickel pig iron (NPI) production slows down.

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Who will tackle First Nations waterworks? (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – April 27, 2015)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

Trust Ontario’s Liberals to take a swipe at the feds in a provincial budget, but we got the point.

Last week’s big document by Finance Minister Charles Sousa notes that 30 Ontario First Nations remain under boil-water advisories, something that is primarily a federal responsibility.

In most communities in the province, clean drinking water is a given and a basic right, but at too many First Nations — both remote and road-accessible — it remains elusive.

In Sousa’s budget, the province acknowledges a long-term plan is needed to rectify this deplorable situation, but is light on details.

Every so often, First Nations will try to highlight faulty drinking water plants, or the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year on endless bottled-water relief programs.

Then, as part of an enervating back-and-forth routine, the federal government will say that money is indeed allocated every year for infrastructure, including waterworks.

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The End of the BRICs – by Gwynne Dyer (Gwynne Dyer.com – April 8, 2015)

http://gwynnedyer.com/

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable,” said John Kenneth Galbraith, the wisest American economist of his generation. (“A paltry honour,” he would have murmured.) But you still can’t resist wondering when the Chinese economy will be bigger than the US economy – or the Brazilian bigger than the British, or the Turkish bigger than the Italian – as if it were some kind of horse race.

The latest document to tackle these questions is “The World in 2050″, drawn up by HSBC bank, which ranks the world’s hundred biggest economies as they are now, and as (it thinks) they will be in 2050. It contains the usual little surprises, like a prediction that per capita incomes in the Philippines and Indonesia, now roughly the same, will diverge so fast that the average Filipino will have twice the income of the average Indonesian by 2050.

The Venezuelan economy will only triple in size, but Peru’s economy will grow eightfold. Per capita income will double-and-a-bit in Nigeria; in Ethiopia it will grow sixfold. Bangladesh powers past Pakistan, with a per capita income in 2050 that’s half again as big as Pakistan’s. (It’s only two-thirds of Pakistan’s at the moment.) And so on and so forth: local phenomena mostly of interest to local people.

But what’s happening at the top of the list is of interest to everybody. That’s where the great powers all live, with the BRICs nipping at their heels. Or rather, some of the BRICs are nipping at their heels, and some are not. That’s the big news.

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NEWS RELEASE: A RESILIENT AND PROSPEROUS NORTH REMAINS AN IMPORTANT DRIVER OF CANADA’S ECONOMY AND SOCIETY

Investments in Aboriginal youth, critical infrastructure, and governance are priorities

HIGHLIGHTS

• Resilient Northern communities strengthen Canada’s sovereignty, security, and economic prosperity.
• Upfront investments in critical infrastructure, population health and wellness, education, and the upgrading of essential skills will better enable Northerners to partake in economic development opportunities.
• Future planning for responsible growth in Canada’s North will require a more integrated approach to policy development between communities, industry, and governments at all levels.

Ottawa, April 29, 2015 – A new policy review from The Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for the North’s Building a Resilient and Prosperous North recommends three high-priority areas for decision makers to consider when planning for growth in Canada’s North: Investments in Aboriginal youth wellness, physical and telecommunications infrastructure, and good governance to steer growth.

“Building the resilience of Northern communities is vital to achieving national goals of sovereignty, security, and economic prosperity. The North is changing fast – politically, socially, and economically – and we should be promoting the economic potential without compromising the integrity of traditional ways of living,” said Anja Jeffrey, Director, Northern and Aboriginal Policy.

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Superintendent warned about water levels – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 29, 2015)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

A former superintendent at Stobie Mine who toured the underground facility the day two men were killed at its 3,000-foot level said he left the mine about noon with concerns about excess water and plugged drain holes.

Larry Lauzon was brought in June 8, 2011, to offer advice to superintendent Keith Birney about safety practices. Stobie routinely experiences constant problems due to water being funnelled from surface.

Stobie supervisor Jason Chenier, 35, and miner Jordan Fram, 26, were killed by a run of tons of muck on the 3,000-level. The incident is believed to have occurred about 9:45 p.m.

Lauzon testified Tuesday at the seventh day of the coroner’s inquest into their deaths that he noticed on his tour varying depths of water accumulation at several levels of Stobie’s B division, where the men were overcome by muck. He talked with Birnie, cautioning him to take water issues seriously, and spoke with workers they encountered on their tour about safe mining practices.

As he was leaving the mine, Lauzon said he looked for the mine manager to see if he was aware of water conditions in the mine.

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Day of Mourning: Labour vows to ‘fight for the living’ – by Connor Pringle (Sudbury Star – April 29, 2015)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Workers who were killed, injured or suffered illnesses from workplace conditions were mourned Tuesday during the 31st Annual Day of Mourning hosted by The Sudbury and District Labour Council and United Steel Workers Local 6500.

The Annual Day of Mourning recognizes workers killed, injured and who suffered illnesses while on the job.

“It’s a day to make a commitment to protect the living and to prevent future injuries and fatalities,” said Alain Arseneault, co-chair of maintenance/electrical for the Health, Safety and Environment Committee.

The day started 31 years ago, according to Arseneault, with April 28 chosen as that is the date the Ontario government proclaimed the first comprehensive Workers Compensation Act in Canada.

The Sudbury region was the first region to declare April 28 as the official Day of Mourning in Canada and across the world. The Steelworkers local says 44 deaths have occurred on company property since the first Day of Mourning.

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Dazed and Confused in Deutschland – by Christopher Ecclestone (InvestorIntel.com – April 29, 2015)

http://investorintel.com/

In the balmy (barmy?) days before the global financial crisis in 2008, Germany was regarded as the Promised Land for Vancouver stock promoters. They had never seen anything like it… so many sheep to be fleeced and none of them up to date on the guiles and wiles of Vancouver’s best and brightest.

It was a happy hunting ground. Even better the various German exchanges went out of the way to make their lists open to all and sundry. Stocks that you couldn’t even find a ticker for in Canada, trading on some third sub-tier of Yellowknife Adventurers Exchange could get itself a listing in Berlin or Stuttgart by merely existing.

This not only gave an extra ticker to fill up embarrassing white spaces, between photos of the moose pasture, on the company website but also gave one status when one strutted the floor of the Munich Gold Show touting one’s vermiculite, granola or alfafa deposit. I have met executives who still sigh for the days when their registers frequently had 40% of the holders located on the Continent.

Sadly all good things had to come to the end and the severe fleecing the German sheep received at the hands of the promoters left their hides red raw and it was a long time in healing. Germany faded from view and most German-speaking investors forswore any involvement or interest in Canada besides the hockey scores at the Olympics.

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Iron ore streak extends to nine days – by Daniel Palmer (The Australian – April 29, 2015)

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

Iron ore has continued its march back toward $US60 a tonne in offshore trade amid rising hopes for more stimulus out of Beijing.

At the end of the latest session, benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China was trading at $US59.20 a tonne, up 0.9 per cent from its prior close of $US58.70 a tonne.

The gains extend a withering run for the commodity that has come as a surprise to many, with a surge of over 25 per cent from its 10-year low of $US46.70 a tonne earlier this month. Much of this recovery has come in the past nine trading days, with iron ore last seeing a red session on April 15.

The developments have allowed for a strong bounce in stock prices within the iron ore sector, with BC Iron and Fortescue Metals leading the way.

The two WA-based miners endured a rare negative session yesterday during the current iron ore streak, with stock in both firms sinking around 5 per cent by the close as the broader market moved lower. Another lift in the commodity’s price overnight, however, leaves them primed to recover much of those losses during today’s trade.

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NEWS RELEASE: TRIBUTE TO KELLY STRONG, OUTGOING CHAIRMAN

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

This week marks the end of the Ontario Mining Association Chairmanship for Kelly Strong. On behalf of our 86 member companies, we would like to express our gratitude, and applaud his commitment to fostering a resilient and effective association.

Kelly’s leadership is characterized by pragmatic thinking, a commitment to enhancing the credibility of our sector and to building constructive relationships at Queen’s Park. He has been particularly passionate about issues related to mine safety, promoting a competitive energy policy, and communicating with the public through initiatives such as So You Think You Know Mining.

Kelly also championed the need to redouble our efforts to share safety practices among member companies. He feels strongly that OMA committees are in the best position to learn from each other, and enabling a process to do so must be the top priority for the association.

With close to 25 years in the mining industry, Kelly began his career at Placer Dome’s Campbell Mine in Red Lake, where he was promoted to senior roles, including Chief Mine Engineer and Mine Captain. In 2001, he joined Vale, most recently serving as Vice President of the company’s Ontario and United Kingdom Operations.

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Noront pays more for Cliffs claims – by Carl Clutchey (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – April 29, 2015)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

Noront Resources has formally acquired three key chromite deposits in the Ring of Fire, but for a much higher price than what the company had offered earlier this year.

The Toronto-based company said Tuesday it increased its offer to US$27.5 million from $20 million after the previous owner of the properties, Cliffs Natural Resources, “received an unsolicited, competing bid.”
“To ensure maximum value was received for its chromite assets, Cliffs then requested that both parties submit revised final binding offers, at which point Noront increased its offer to $27.5 million,” Noront said in a statement Tuesday.

“We feel $27.5 million is an attractive price for the acquisition of these strategic assets,” said Noront president Alan Coutts. Noront now holds 360 mining claims and roughly 65 per cent (80,000 hectares) of the Ring of Fire mining belt located about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

“The project has value,” observed Thunder Bay-based Ontario Prospectors Association executive director Garry Clark. “It just depends on how long you can sit on it.”

Cleveland-based Cliffs, which noted the increased amount for the chromite properties in a separate news release Tuesday, said the planned sale “is another step in divesting interests in non-core assets.”

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Barrick to revamp executives’ pay after shareholder backlash – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – April 29, 2015)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

John Thornton told the company’s annual shareholder meeting that 75% of the votes were cast against compensation scheme.

Embattled Barrick Gold Corp. chairman John Thornton has promised to overhaul the miner’s controversial executive compensation system that hiked his pay by 35 per cent to $12.9 million (U.S.).

But at the annual meeting Tuesday, where shareholders voted overwhelmingly against executive salary increases, Thornton didn’t offer to hand any of it back, underscoring that he is personally tied to the future fortunes of the company since he bought half of his 1.4 million Barrick shares “with my own money.”

“We have heard you loud and clear,” he said, after early returns suggested 75 per cent of shareholders did not support the pay packages.

“We take that feedback and we will go back and reform our system – and specifically how it relates to me,” Thornton assured the investor audience at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

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