Republic of Mining

Getting to Yes has never been tougher – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – February 27, 2015)

February 27, 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.

Mines and forest projects can face the same procedural snakes and ladders.
In Northern Ontario, the so-called Ring of Fire chromite deposits will be
tied up for years and years in environment reviews and aboriginal demands.
Already, the major U.S. company interested in developing the deposits has
walked away. Who could blame it? (Jeffrey Simpson – Globe and Mail)

Forget for a moment U.S. President Barack Obama’s doubts about the Keystone XL pipeline. Whether the President decides for or against the project shouldn’t deflect Canadians from asking within their own borders: How do we get to Yes?

Getting to Yes is becoming harder all the time. Fossil-fuel developments, pipelines, mines, dams, hydro-electric transmission lines and wind turbines are frequently contested, delayed or blocked.

Even when they’re approved, the process for getting to Yes can take so long that projects lose their economic rationale, as with the now-abandoned Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which shuddered to a halt after 10 years of review because the gas market had changed. Or, projects are postponed or killed because they face tough competition from overseas suppliers where approvals are not so protracted. Proposed liquefied natural gas projects in British Columbia face this very risk.

Giant Mine headframe set for demolition this summer – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – February 27, 2015)

February 27, 2015

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

Yellowknife city council abandons plans to take over Con Mine Robertson headframe

One landmark from Yellowknife’s gold mining past is close to disappearing for good, while the future of another is in limbo. Plans are underway to begin dismantling the iconic C-Shaft headframe at Giant Mine this summer, representatives from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada said at a public meeting Thursday night.

It’s part of an early “site stabilization” phase of the remediation project triggered in 2013 by concerns about site safety. “People will definitely notice a difference,” said Jane Amphlett, an engineering manager with the project.

“We haven’t finalized the plan, but it’s likely that significant parts of the shaft will come down in the next year, and likely perhaps all of it will come down once [our engineers] finalize the actual plan for it.” Amphlett said the timber tower, which is at the centre of the clean-up site, poses a potential safety risk to remediation workers.

The smaller A-Shaft headframe, near the Yellowknife boat launch area and close to the intended site of a proposed N.W.T. Mining Museum, will also be taken down, though when has not be determined yet, Amphlett added.

Pebble Mine debate in Alaska: EPA becomes target by planning for rare ‘veto’ – by Joby Warrick (Washington Post – February 15, 2015)

February 27, 2015

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Just north of Iliamna Lake in southwestern Alaska is an empty expanse of marsh and shrub that conceals one of the world’s great buried fortunes: A mile-thick layer of virgin ore said to contain at least 6.7 million pounds — or $120 billion worth — of gold.

As fate would have it, a second treasure sits precisely atop the first: the spawning ground for the planet’s biggest runs of sockeye salmon, the lifeline of a fishery that generates $500 million a year.

Between the two is the Obama administration, which has all but decided that only one of the treasures can be brought to market. How the White House came to side with fish over gold is a complex tale that involves millionaire activists, Alaska Natives, lawsuits and one politically explosive question: Can the federal government say no to a property owner before he has a chance to explain what he wants to do?

As early as this spring, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to invoke a rarely used legal authority to bar a Canadian company, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., from beginning work on its proposed Pebble Mine, citing risks to salmon and to Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay, 150 miles downstream.

The EPA’s position is supported by a broad coalition of conservationists, fishermen and tribal groups — and, most opinion polls show, by a majority of Alaskans.

New Caledonia: Nickel – Market Insights – by Robert Trzebski (Australian Mining – Febraury 26, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

There are currently three key players in the nickel sector over in New Caledonia. French-owned ERAMET has been present in the country for over 120 years now and operate mines in New Caledonia through their subsidiary, SLN (Société Le Nickel).

They have in total five operations, which are mostly concentrated in the centre of the island at Kouaoua, Thio, Nepoui, and Tiebaghi, not to mention the biggest nickel processing plant in the world, Doniambo.
Vale are the second big player in town, and have the formidable Goro Nickel project under their ownership.

This mine is located in the South of the island. It began operations in August 2010, with over 55 million tonnes of estimated mineral reserve.

Estimated annual production is around 60,000 tonnes of nickel and 5,000 tonnes of cobalt. This is an open pit operation with a processing plant on site. The third and final significant player is SMSP in joint ownership with Glencore Nickel.

The Koniambo mine started open cut operations two years ago in the north of the country, again with a processing plant on site. Koniambo will be an important contributor to New Caledonia’s mining future, being a high-grade nickel deposit of 6.1 Mt of contained nickel that has a current forecast of 25 years of operations.

Light at the end of the tunnel – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – February 24, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

Ontario exploration spending continues slide, but several projects advance to mine development

Exploration and deposit appraisal expenditures in Ontario were down significantly in 2014 – no surprise to junior mining companies, geologists, drilling companies and manufacturers of drilling consumables. But the news wasn’t all bad as the New Year dawned.

Revised estimates published by Natural Resources Canada in September pegged exploration and deposit appraisal expenditures for Ontario at $509.5 million, less than half the amount spent in 2011 and down again from last year’s total of $562 million.

Ontario still leads all other provinces and territories with 24 per cent of spending in Canada, but that’s down from Ontario’s 30.8 per cent share registered in 2010.

Gold continued to be the predominant target, accounting for $416.3 million of total spending for the year. Grass roots exploration took most of the hit, though several of the most promising projects crossed the threshold from exploration to mine development. By late January, gold had rebounded from its October low of $1,140 and was sitting at just under $1300.

“We had a very good run from the early 2000s,” said Rod Thomas, president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. “China was growing at double digit rates and there was a huge demand for commodities starting around 2003 all the way to the financial crisis in 2008… but we bounced back and the industry did really well until around April 2012.”

Moosonee railway extension gaining momentum – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – February 25, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.timminstimes.com/

Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Lawrence Martin will be joining the chiefs of the Matawa Tribal Council at the annual prospectors’ convention in Toronto next week to outline his plans for a new railway line running from Moosonee to the Ring Of Fire mining project.

Martin said he met with Neskantaga Chief Peter Moonias earlier this week to outline the idea, but Martin said Moonias could not make any sort of a commitment on behalf of the Matawa First Nations, which is claiming territorial jurisdiction over the mining area. Martin said however there is growing support for Mushkegowuk.

Regardless, grand chief Martin said the idea is gaining momentum and more people are willing to listen to the idea. He said he expects mining executives at the Prospectors and Developers Convention next week will be interested in hearing the proposal, given the overall interest in the mining project.

The Ring of Fire is the name give to a huge deposit of chromite located in the McFauld’s Lake and Webequie area, about 600 kilometres north west of Timmins. Chromite is an important mineral element in manufacturing stainless steel. The Ring of Fire area could become the largest chromite mining site in North America, a venture measured in the tens of billions of dollars.

In January, Martin revealed the idea of creating a rail link across Mushkegowuk territory into the Ring Of Fire area with a two-pronged objective; one to bring in a rail link and secondly to bring in a high-voltage energy transmission line.

[Mike Tremblay] Self-confessed bush rat strikes gold – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – February 13, 2014)

February 26, 2015

http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

Mike Tremblay grew up in Chapleau, nine kilometres from the Borden Lake discovery, and couldn’t wait to get out. “I was getting to the point where I was going to be in trouble with the law if I didn’t figure out what I was going to do with myself, so I went to the guidance councellor and they figured I was the kind of guy who should be working outdoors.”

Forestry was out of the question, so Tremblay enrolled in a geology program at Sault College. In 1984, he was back in Chapleau and found work with Noranda on an outcrop sampling program. “They were redoing the highway at the time and blasted through an outcrop,” he recalled. “One of the guys I worked with mapped it and in his report called it vent proximal geology.

That was really interesting to me. Noranda’s idea was that it was good geology for a base metal deposit, but there was a little sniff of gold and I decided to follow it up.” A self-confessed “bush rat,” Tremblay received a series of grants through the Ontario Prospectors Assistance Program over the years.

“The OPAP grants of $10,000 allowed me to pay myself $100 a day, spend time near my home town and still do what I wanted to do on my own terms,” he said.

He first staked property in the Borden Lake area in 1987 and continued to work it for a total of 17 years between other jobs. He held the property from 1987 to 2000 and restaked it in 2006.

The Men Who Mine Volcanoes – by Kevin McElvaney (The Atlantic – February 25, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.theatlantic.com/

Photos from two days in a sulfurous crater in Indonesia

Ijen is a quietly active volcano on the Indonesian island of East Java, and it is also a place of business. Local workers hike up the side of the mountain and down into the crater at the top to harvest its sulfur—a byproduct of the gas that escapes from the volcano’s vents and collects near the shores of an acidic lake at the crater’s center. The chemical is used in industry worldwide, from making matchsticks to vulcanizing rubber, but Ijen’s sulfur goes mostly to local factories, which use it to bleach sugar.

Ijen is one of the few volcanic sulfur mines remaining in the world: Mining an active volcano is dangerous work, and there are easier ways to get the chemical. I first became curious about the volcano after seeing it featured in the 2001 documentary War Photographer.

The film showed the protagonist James Nachtwey coughing furiously as he clicked his camera amid clouds of sulfur. Being a photographer myself, I wondered how the place would look in person and whether the conditions could be as bad as they seemed. It struck me as impossible that the slight-statured miners shown in the film could really carry heavy loads of sulfur up and down a mountain.

I left from Hamburg, Germany, and it took me three flights, one train ride, two motorcycle trips, and a long trek up the volcano before I saw the mine for the first time. A photographer I knew in Jakarta introduced me to a former miner named Imam, who served as my guide. I spent two days photographing the workers there.

Vale Posts Quarterly Loss Amid Declining Iron-Ore Prices – by Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – February 26, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

(Bloomberg) — Vale SA, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, reported a second consecutive quarterly loss as prices fell and Brazil’s weakening currency increased debt costs. Shares fell.

Vale’s fourth-quarter net loss narrowed to $1.85 billion, or 36 cents a share, from a record loss of $6.45 billion, or $1.26, a year earlier, the Rio de Janeiro-based company said Thursday in a statement before markets opened.

Vale is boosting iron-ore output to a record, helping to expand a global glut as the top producers squeeze smaller miners for market share amid slowing demand from China. While a declining currency in Brazil and Canada helps Vale cut expenses at its main operations, it boosts the cost of servicing dollar-denominated debt. Foreign exchange and monetary losses curbed profit by $1.26 billion, the company said.

While Vale posted a “solid” performance in its iron-ore unit, the base metals business including nickel and copper operations performed below expectations, Bank of America analysts led by Thiago Lofiego said.

“Base metals posted weak results,” the analysts said in a note to clients Thursday. “A more intense cash-burn due to lower iron ore prices and still-high capex should result in increasing leverage and subdued dividends in the coming years.”

Miners pan moratorium state – by Paul Garvey (The Australian – February 26, 2015)

February 26, 2015

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

THE world’s mining companies have ranked Victoria as less attractive than the historically strife-torn nations of Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the latest annual survey from Canada’s Fraser Institute.

The respected survey, in which mining executives rank the investment attractiveness of 122 nations and jurisdictions around the world on a variety of regulatory, social and geological factors, ranked Victoria as the least attractive place in Australia to invest.

NSW also performed poorly, ranking behind Burkina Faso — site of a military coup last year — and the military junta-ruled Myanmar. Victoria’s score was hard hit by poor scores in categories such as environmental regulation uncertainty and regulatory duplication and inconsistency.

The state was ranked 66th out of 122 jurisdictions for investment attractiveness, placing it just ahead of countries such as Laos, Liberia and Kazakhstan. Rob Annells, the executive chairman of Victorian oil and gas explorer Lakes Oil, said Victoria’s poor showing in the survey was of little surprise.

Victoria put a moratorium around onshore gas drilling under the former Liberal government which has since been extended by the new Labor government.

Commentary: Seabed Mining: Long on Promises, Short on Delivery – by Stuart Burns (Metal Miner – February 26, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://agmetalminer.com/

If you think miners or developers on land struggle with environmental legislators, spare a thought for those looking to develop resources under the ocean via seabed mining.

The International Seabed Authority, a UN agency, has so far issued 26 exploration licenses to governments and companies enabling them to operate in international waters but none of them have reached commercial realization. Even in national waters governments are coming down on the side of the environmental lobby when new applications are being put forward.

After leading the way in supporting early proposals, the New Zealand environmental regulators have recently turned down an application from an ocean mining firm Chatham Rock to develop a site off the coast, some 450 kilometers southeast of Wellington, the FT reports.

The site in question is said to be rich in phosphate, used in fertilizer manufacturing, and said to hold enough to meet 25 years of New Zealand’s current consumption. Chatham Rock have invested $33 million over seven years researching the environmental impact and developing the extraction processes.

It is not hyperbole to say the ocean floor is the last great mineral reserve on the planet.

Controversial mining rules draw crowd in Augusta – by Kevin Miller (Portland Press Herald – February 25, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.pressherald.com/ [Maine]

Opponents contend that the Maine DEP’s proposals would not protect the environment but supporters say the rules would strengthen, not weaken, existing regulations.

AUGUSTA – The fight over mining returned to the State House on Wednesday as dozens of people urged lawmakers to once again reject proposed rules linked to a Canadian company’s plans to extract gold and other minerals from a northern Maine mountain.

In a repeat of hearings held on an identical proposal last year, lawmakers heard eight hours of testimony from about 70 speakers focused largely on whether mining represents an economic opportunity or an environmental threat to Maine.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is seeking legislative approval of new rules that supporters say could help revive the state’s all-but-nonexistent metal-mining industry while protecting the environment. But critics, who accounted for the vast majority of speakers on Wednesday, argued the proposals do not go far enough to protect water from mine contamination or to hold companies accountable for long-term cleanup of sites.

“Weakening existing mining regulations is bad policy,” said Jim Gerritsen, who grows organic potatoes on a farm roughly 40 miles from Bald Mountain, the site of what is believed to be one of Maine’s largest mineral deposits. “Our priority must be protecting Maine’s environment.”

On Keystone, the Conservatives made one fatal blunder – by Tasha Kheiriddin (National Post – February 26, 2015)

February 26, 2015

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

Between price drops and presidential vetoes, Canada’s oil-fuelled future is looking more and more like a mirage. The latest blow came on Wednesday, when U.S. President Barack Obama vetoed Congress’ endorsement of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Obama’s letter to the Senate was both fulsome and blunt: “Because this act of Congress conflicts with established executive branch procedures and cuts short thorough consideration of issues that could bear on our national interest — including our security, safety, and environment — it has earned my veto.”

The move was not unexpected. For years, the White House had repeatedly delayed its decision on the project. In an interview given to The New York Times in July 2013, Obama pooh-poohed Keystone’s job-creation potential, and warned that he would insist that environmental standards be the ones that prevailed. And now, with crude prices hitting rock-bottom, oil sands projects shutting down, and U.S. petroleum inventories growing, it’s hard to argue the pressing need to pipe in more oil from Canada.

Why did this happen? It’s not like Canada didn’t try: The federal government threw everything at the Keystone file. Yet despite heavy lobbying by Ottawa and Alberta, despite the fact that Canada produces “ethical” oil untainted by gross human rights violations, despite our nation’s military engagement in Afghanistan and now Iraq, despite paying for the U.S. customs plaza at the new Windsor-Detroit bridge, in short, despite being a damn good neighbour, friend and ally, all Canada got is a sharp stick in the eye.

Through all this, however, the Conservative government made one fatal blunder: It underestimated the importance of the environment to the Obama presidency.

Drought in Chile curbs copper production, to trim global surplus – by Eric Onstad and Rosalba O’Brien (Reuters Africa – February 25, 2015)

February 25, 2015

http://af.reuters.com/

LONDON/SANTIAGO, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A drought in Chile is hampering copper production, a water-intensive business, in the world’s biggest producer of the metal, one more factor that could trim an expected surplus this year.

Both Anglo American and BHP Billiton have said the extremely dry conditions have hit production due to restrictions on water, used for everything from toilets for workers to separating the metals in the ore body from waste rock and tamping down dust that heavy trucks kick up.

“The one caveat or the risk I think that we need to flag… is Chile is still in drought,” Anglo Chief Executive Mark Cutifani told a results presentation last week. “It remains a risk, and in fact it was impacting our operating performance in November and December.”

In some parts of Chile, January was one of the driest since records began, exacerbating a drought that began in 2007, said Chilean meteorologist Claudia Villarroel. Winters in central Chile are becoming drier because of climate change, she added.

Indeed, Anglo’s Los Bronces mine in central Chile has been the worst affected of the company’s mines. It warned that water scarcity at the mine, the world’s sixth-largest copper producer, could cut as much 30,000 tonnes or 4 percent off Anglo’s overall copper output this year.

Nunatsiavut president Sarah Leo ‘quite disturbed’ over Vale agreement – (CBC News Newfoundland – February 25, 2015)

February 25, 2015

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

The Inuit government in Labrador isn’t happy with the announcement of changes to the Voisey’s Bay agreement, which will allow Vale to continue exporting unprocessed ore from the massive nickel mine.

Nunatsiavut president Sarah Leo said the Newfoundland and Labrador government was required to consult the Inuit because the mine is on land connected to their land agreement with the provincial and federal governments.

“We should’ve been consulted — I mean, it’s in our backyard. It’s right here,” she said. “We have a land claims agreement that specifically has a chapter dedicated to the Voisey’s Bay project,” Leo told CBC News. “So, it’s very important to us that we have an understanding and are involved in what’s happening with the project.”

On Tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Derrick Dalley and Vale VP Stuart Macnaughton announced that they were amending the Voisey’s Bay Development Agreement to allow the company to send nickel concentrate from the mine in Labrador to Ontario and Manitoba for processing.

The delay is connected to delays in completing Vale’s massive processing facility in Long Harbour, in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay.