Republic of Mining

Walter Curlook was Mining’s Green Pioneer – by Cynthia Macdonald (University of Toronto Magazine – Spring 2015)

April 24, 2015

http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/

The engineer, inventor, Inco executive and U of T prof is remembered for his boundless passion, spirit and energy

Nickel is a metal that’s both strong and remarkably versatile. These two qualities also describe Walter Curlook: an engineer, executive, community leader and teacher whose extraordinary career was forged not just in and around the nickel mines of his native Sudbury, but in work that took him around the world.

Curlook (BASc 1950, MASc 1951, PhD 1953), who died October 3 at the age of 85, rose meteorically through the ranks at Inco Ltd: from research metallurgist to top executive at a time when the company stood atop the world in nickel production. Curlook himself invented more than a dozen process patents: even at the highest administrative level, he remained an engineer at heart.

“He was an executive, but he also got right down in the labs and contributed directly to technical development,” says Prof. Doug Perovic of materials science and engineering. “He insisted on staying close and keeping his ear to the ground; he just worked so hard.”

He also pioneered environmental responsibility in the mining industry. “Under his leadership, Inco was always progressive in the environmental area,” says colleague Mansoor Barati. A $600 million sulphur dioxide abatement program, completed in 1993, was described as the largest environmental project ever completed by the industry.

The 33 (American Mining Movie – 2015)

April 24, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) is an upcoming Chilean survival drama film directed by Patricia Riggen and written by Mikko Alanne and José Rivera. The film is based on the real events of 2010 mining disaster in which a group of thirty-three miners were trapped in the San José Mine, in Chile. The film stars Antonio Banderas as Mario “Super Mario” Sepúlveda, who sent videos to the rescuers to notify them about the miners’ condition.

Production[edit]

The upcoming film is based on the events of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident, also known as the “Chilean mining accident”. It is directed by Patricia Riggen and written by Mikko Alanne and José Rivera. Producer Mike Medavoy, who also produced Apocalypse Now, has worked with the miners, their families, and those involved to put the film together.[7] On August 13, 2014, it was announced that The 33 will be the first film to receive the Colombian Film Commission’s incentive includes 40% for film services and 20% for film logistics services of the amount spent in the country.[8]

Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (American Mining Themed Movie – 1995)

April 24, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain is a 1995 drama film starring Christina Ricci and Anna Chlumsky. It takes place in the fictional town of Wheaton, Washington, but was filmed on location in Norfolk, Virginia, Vancouver, B.C, Nelson, B.C, Pleasant Grove, Utah, and Pemberton, B.C.. The film chronicles the adventures of two girls, Beth (Christina Ricci) and Jody (Anna Chlumsky), exploring caves beneath Bear Mountain.

Plot[edit]

In the summer of 1980, Beth Easton and her recently widowed mother move from Los Angeles to a small town in Washington in an attempt to reassemble their broken lives. At first, Beth misses L.A. and resents their new life in the country, but a chance encounter with the outspoken and free-spirited Jody Salerno piques Beth’s curiosity about the town. Jody, a social outcast with a troubled homelife and an alcoholic mother and her boyfriend Ray who is implied to be abusing Jody, shares Beth’s love for ‘Winnie the Pooh’ stories, and the two girls become fast friends.

NEWS RELEASE: Mega Precious to be Acquired by Yamana Gold

April 24, 2015

THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – April 24, 2015) – Mega Precious Metals Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MGP) (“Mega” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement (the “Agreement”) with Yamana Gold Inc. (TSX:YRI)(NYSE:AUY) (“Yamana”), whereby Yamana will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Mega under a plan of arrangement for consideration of 0.02092 of a Yamana share and cash of C$0.001 per Mega share, equivalent to C$0.10 per Mega share, based on the closing price of Yamana shares on the TSX on April 23, 2015. The total consideration to Mega shareholders is approximately C$17.5 million, based on the Company’s issued current and outstanding shares. Yamana has also agreed to purchase the outstanding convertible debentures held by Pacific Road Capital Resources Funds.

Mega’s board of directors has unanimously approved the transaction and recommends that Mega shareholders vote in favour of the arrangement. All of the directors and officers of Mega, as well as certain shareholders who collectively own approximately 22% of Mega’s issued and outstanding shares, have entered into support agreements with Yamana pursuant to which they have agreed, among other things, to support the transaction and vote their Mega shares in favour of the arrangement. Paradigm Capital Inc. has provided an opinion to Mega’s board that the consideration is fair, from a financial point of view, to Mega shareholders.

Benefits to Mega Shareholders:

‘Ring of Fire’ asset sale descends into chaos – by Peter Koven (National Post – April 24, 2015)

April 24, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

The sale of prized chromite assets in Northern Ontario’s “Ring of Fire” mineral belt has descended into chaos, according to sources and court filings, with multiple bidders and dissenters and no certainty about the endgame.

The whole mess should be sorted out on Friday, when the Quebec Superior Court will listen to arguments and determine how the contested bidding process should proceed. Until recently, this process did not seem controversial in the least.

On March 23, Noront Resources Ltd. announced a deal to buy the chromite assets from Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. for US$20 million. Cliffs is making a much-publicized retreat from Canada, and sold the assets for a fraction of what it paid to acquire them.

The Noront deal was expected to close in mid-April. But on April 13, Cliffs received a $23 million rival bid for the assets, court filings show, which prompted another round of bidding and a disputed result. Additionally, four First Nations groups are contesting Noront’s takeover and told the Superior Court they are plotting their own bid. (Cliffs’ Canadian unit is currently in creditor protection, meaning everything is being done through the courts.)

Gold bars, tall tales and hangovers—scenes from the world’s largest mining convention – by Trevor Cole (Globe and Mail – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

If gold had a fragrance, it would be the whiff of desperation. And come early March in Toronto, someone would bottle it, relabel it as “Hope” and attempt to sell it at a booth at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual convention.

For four days every March, Toronto is centre ice in the world of mining. Frankly, it is anyway—nearly half of the world’s equity transactions related to extracting goodies from the planet’s crust flow through Toronto’s exchanges—but it’s during these four days that the mining world comes to set up its booths, paste on a smile and make a lot of those deals happen. And then, at the end of each day, because the mining business is hard, the world retires to a hotel suite and drinks as much as humanly possible.

This is how it has been since 1942. That first year, when the price of an ounce of gold sat at $33.85 (U.S.), several hundred prospectors and mine developers decided to gather for a single day in Toronto’s King Edward Hotel, talk a great deal about their industry and then head to the bar.

Everybody enjoyed themselves immensely, so the next year they did it again. In 1944, attendance was too high for the King Eddy, so the convention moved to the Royal York Hotel.

Sprott makes $898m unsolicited bid for gold/silver trusts – by Scott Deveau (Bloomberg News – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

Video interview from Business Network News: http://www.bnn.ca/

http://www.mineweb.com/

Sprott Asset Management LP plans to make an unsolicited offer to buy Central GoldTrust and Silver Bullion Trust for almost $900 million, saying the precious metals companies are undervalued.

The share swap by Sprott, a Toronto-based money manager that focuses on gold and silver, represents an 8.3 percent premium to the trusts’ combined market value of $829 million, based on Wednesday’s closing price.

The Canadian trusts, which buy and hold gold and silver, have been under pressure from shareholder Polar Securities Inc., a Toronto-based hedge fund. Polar has been urging the trusts to change how unitholders can redeem their investment as a means of closing their trading gaps.

Neither Labor nor Liberal has handled WA’s mining boom well – by Larry Graham (Western Australia Today – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.watoday.com.au/

Western Australia has a serious problem it needs to deal with. When confronted with unprecedented growth in the mining industry, WA could take the easy political option of spending up big and business as usual, or the more difficult path of others in similar circumstances by putting the windfall revenue away for a rainy day.

When the Barnett Government belatedly opted for a sovereign fund, they chose the one of the worst possible models – and Labor opposed the entire concept. What this bellowed was that neither side of politics understood what was going on around them.

The end results of successive WA governments’ mismanagement of the unprecedented growth are more reminiscent of Nauru than of a progressive economy. It’s easy to jump into political hyper-talk mode and blame the GST and falling iron ore prices for our budgetary woes, however both these events are cyclical and predictable.

With regard to the GST distribution, the recent brouhaha has been a boon to the Premier and the media, but a quick peek at the WA Treasurer Christian Porter’s one and only budget will show that GST revenue has not yet fallen to the levels he predicted in May 2011.

NEWS RELEASE: FEDERAL BUDGET FAILS NAN FIRST NATIONS

April 23, 2015

http://www.nan.on.ca/

THUNDER BAY: (April 22, 2015) Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Harvey Yesno says the 2015 federal budget fails NAN First Nations by lacking significant investments to address the crippling lack of infrastructure, especially in remote communities, and a strong commitment for environmental protection enhanced consultation on resource development by Natural Resources Canada.

“It is shameful that the Minister is championing this budget as beneficial for northern Ontario when 15 NAN First Nations in his riding are currently on Health Canada drinking water advisories,” said Grand Chief Harvey Yesno. “As MP for Kenora, Greg Rickford represents the largest number of First Nation communities in Canada, but he is clearly not representing the interest of his constituents given the continued failure by his government to address even the most basic needs of these communities.”

NAN First Nations are under increasing pressure from industry for the development of the wealth of natural resources in their traditional territory, but many communities are plagued by Third World living conditions including lack of safe drinking water, health care, protection services (fire and police) and housing.

“We will not raise our children in poverty while the rest of Canada prospers from the exploitation of our territories.
Instead of promises of future FedNor funding for his riding, we are looking to Minister Rickford and this government to make clear commitments to meaningful engagement with NAN First Nations based and the spirit and intent of our Treaties,” said Yesno.

Iron Range slump appears set to last for a long time – by Lee Schafer (Minneapolis Star Tribune – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.startribune.com/

A U.S. Steel spokesman last week emphasized the “temporary” nature of the idling coming at the company’s Keetac and Minntac operations in northeastern Minnesota.

But in looking around at the global industry, it’s shaping up as another of those slumps that sure won’t feel temporary when it’s done. It’s a global industry, and the news is bad all over.

Down in the Indian state of Goa, for example, an export industry that three years ago employed more than 100,000 may never come back. The government put it on hold for environmental reasons, and when it permitted mining to start up again this year there was no more market. Barge captains there can’t even sell their rusting hulks for scrap.

Over in western Australia, a leading market analyst last month asked for one of the iron mining companies to do the decent thing and go out of business. His other hope was that producers finally get serious about forming some sort of cartel to get a production cap, boosting prices. Financial analysts don’t usually openly call for price-fixing and collusion.

The pain isn’t just confined to ore, of course, because it’s just an input for making steel. In a recent steel industry report put out by the big Canadian bank BMO, none of the trend lines were heading up.

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company – by Jo Becker and Mike McIntire (New York Times – April 25, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.

Iron ore price rockets – by Frik Els (Mining.com – April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

The spot price of iron ore roared ahead on Wednesday despite all three of the biggest producers of the steelmaking material reporting record-setting output growth.

The 62% Fe import price including freight and insurance at the Chinese port of Tianjin added $2.10 or 4.1% to $52.90 a tonne on Wednesday, the highest since end-March according to data provided by The SteelIndex. The iron ore price has recovered 13% since hitting record lows at the beginning of April, but remains down 25% so far in 2015 after almost halving last year.

The jump in the Metal Bulletin’s benchmark 62%-index was even more spectacular tracking gains of 5.9% at the ports of Qingdao-Rizhao-Lianyungang in China to $54.04 a tonne on Wednesday, a four week high. MetalBulletin’s 65% Brazilian index soared $4.00 to a five-week high of $62 a tonne, nearly $7 higher than its record low.

The Big Three iron ore miners – Vale (NYSE:VALE), Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) and BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) – announced record production numbers on Tuesday and Wednesday, emphasizing the devastating effect a surge of new supply has had on the market just as demand from top consumer China is softening.

BHP isn’t putting the brakes on production growth – just making the most of its installed infrastructure to slash costs further.

Responsible Gold Also Means Supporting Livelihoods of Artisanal Miners – by Tyler Gillard and Roel Nieuwenkamp (Huffington Post – April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theworldpost/

Last year, Congolese civil society leader Eric Kajemba helped broker a deal between the army, local authorities, three powerful Congolese families and a Canadian mining company to demilitarize the Mukungwe gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The mine supports 5,000 thousand so-called “artisanal” gold miners, who work in harsh conditions and have for years lived under constant threat of extortion and violence by armed groups, the military and criminal gangs.

Kajemba’s efforts, and the support from the mining company and the Congolese government, were made in part because of growing international pressure to ensure that minerals don’t finance or fuel violent conflict or human rights abuses when mined in conflict zones.

Yet this same push for “conflict-free” minerals has also created new challenges for mines in eastern Congo, like Mukungwe, to access formal gold markets, mainly because of unreasonably high expectations from the market that go beyond international standards.

In 2010, the US Congress adopted section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, obliging public companies to report on products containing certain minerals that may be benefiting armed groups in the DRC.

TransMountain pipeline ‘will go forward’ if approved, Kinder Morgan Inc CEO says – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

HOUSTON – Saying he is “astounded” by opposition in British Columbia to his company’s proposed pipeline expansion, the head of U.S. energy infrastructure giant Kinder Morgan Inc. warned his company will forge ahead with construction starting in the summer of 2016, if the project receives Ottawa’s approval.

Richard Kinder, chairman and CEO of Houston-based Kinder Morgan, said Wednesday the increasingly vocal opposition is part of an organized movement to use pipeline permits across North America as a “choke point.”

“I believe that Canada, like the U.S., has the rule of law, and I think if you have a valid federal decision to go forward, the project will go forward,” he said at the IHS CERAWeek conference here. “I think we will get this permitted. We intend to get it build. And we hope to see it in service in the third quarter of 2018.”

The approach is in contrast to that of Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., which has been treading carefully despite receiving a federal permit to build its Northern Gateway pipeline last year. The company has yet to announce a start-up date as it works to reduce opposition for its own Alberta-to-West coast pipeline project.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL NEWS RELEASE: Digging for Transparency: How U.S. Companies are Only Scratching the Surface of Conflict Minerals Reporting (April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.amnestyusa.org/

Click here for report: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/digging_for_transparency_hi_res.pdf

Nearly 80 per cent of U.S. public companies analyzed by human rights groups are failing to adequately check and disclose whether their products contain conflict minerals from Central Africa, a new report by Amnesty International and Global Witness reveals.

The report, Digging for Transparency, analyzes 100 conflict minerals reports filed by companies including Apple, Boeing and Tiffany & Co under the 2010 Dodd Frank Act (Section 1502), known as the conflict minerals law. The findings point to alarming gaps in U.S. corporate transparency.

Under the law, more than one thousand U.S.-listed companies that believe they may source minerals from Central Africa submitted reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2014, the first year they were required to do so. The law is designed to reduce the risk that the purchase of minerals from Central Africa contributes to conflict or human rights abuses.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is an important source of minerals – including gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum – for global businesses.