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Spring budget is Liberals’ fire sale to cure 12 years of mismanagement – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – March 14, 2015)

http://www.torontosun.com/

TORONTO – The deficit-plagued Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne is hanging the “For Sale” sign on government assets. The Liberals’ spring budget won’t be so much a fiscally responsible financial document outlining the government’s plan to prudently manage government programs as it will be a fire sale to help fund the Liberals’ 12 years of mismanagement.

Suddenly, Hydro One is for sale. And the government is going to open up wine and beer sales to large grocery stores and rake in millions in franchise fees.

This all has a Nixon to China flavour to it. If a Conservative government suggests changes to liquor sales or selling off utilities, it’s accused of being in the pockets of big business.

When Mike Harris’ government suggested selling off parts of Hydro One more than a decade ago, it was slammed for trading away the province’s “central nervous system.”

The difference back then was that Harris suggested selling off Hydro One because his government philosophically believed the private sector could do a better job. In hindsight, looking at the mess Hydro One is in, Harris was right.

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Primero targets 2018 start-up for Grey Fox Mine – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – March 14, 2015)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

BLACK RIVER-MATHESON – Primero Mining Corporation is aiming to have a new open pit mine in operation by 2018. Ernest Mast, the newly appointed president and chief operating officer, said they plan to begin construction on the Grey Fox open pit next year.

Primero currently operates the Black Fox Mine Black River-Matheson which has both an underground and open pit operation. “That open pit operation will cease later this year,” said Mast, who was appointed president last month. “We will see a decrease in employment from that but then when Grey Fox opens, it is just going to take up that personnel.”

Based solely on confirmed reserves, the Black Fox underground mine may have just another four years of operation. However, Mast said there is considerable evidence to suggest Black Fox will enjoy a considerably longer lifespan. The Grey Fox property is located about three kilometres south of Black Fox Mine.

Both mines are on the geological Destor-Porcupine Fault Zone which extends from Val d’Or to to the west of Timmins.

“Obviously numerous mines are on that trend,” said Mast. “One of the characteristics of the mines on this trend is that most go down to 1,200 to 1,400 metres, and right now we’re only at 520 metres and our drilling at around the 650 metre level has given us the best intercepts (drill results) in the history of the mine and those were recently announced.

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HISTORY: A look back at the Hollinger Mine – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – March 14, 2015)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

TIMMINS – If you live in Timmins (or you’ve just driven through), you’ve passed by this complex, for lack of a better word, many, many times. It is a local landmark, a symbol of the Porcupine then and now. It is a monument to the thousands of miners and their families who have called this community home; indirectly, it has helped countless others set up businesses and make a home in this community. Its contribution to the social fabric of Timmins cannot be diminished – the people involved saw fit to start a hospital, a school, a train station, hotels, homes, sports facilities and clubs. The history of Timmins, like it or not, is intimately attached to the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines – even today.

The Daily Press published a brilliant supplement to their paper in July 1960, that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Hollinger Gold Mine. As part of that celebration, Jules Timmins, president and chairman of the company (at 72 years young), was called upon to pour the 18,490th gold bullion bar, marking the Hollinger’s total production (to that date – July 22, to be exact) at a half-billion dollars, the largest output record of its kind in Canada. At that time, the Hollinger was the largest gold mine in Timmins and the second largest in Canada (it had just been surpassed by Kerr-Addison, in annual production).

A.F. Brigham, a former mine manager, predicted, back in the early 1920s, that the Hollinger would achieve this milestone by the end of the century. He did not count on the addition of the Schumacher property, which raised the reserves at the mine from 4 million tons (give or take) to a very healthy 6.3 million tons – allowing for the aforementioned feat to be achieved in half the time.

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NEWS RELEASE: KWG Resources Inc.: Black Horse Option Term Extended

 

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – March 13, 2015) -KWG Resources Inc. (“KWG”) (CSE:KWG)(TSX VENTURE:KWG)(FRANKFURT:KW6) has reached agreement with Bold Ventures Inc. (“Bold”) (TSXV: BOL) to satisfy its obligations to make the third payment of $700,000 required under Bold’s option agreement with Fancamp Exploration Ltd. (“Fancamp”) (TSXV: FNC) on the Black Horse claims (the “Option Agreement”), by delivery to Fancamp of 35 million common shares of KWG (valued at $0.02 per common share) (the “Share Issuance”) on or before March 19, 2015. In consideration of the foregoing and a payment of $5,000 by KWG, Bold has extended the time by which KWG must complete the exploration expenditures required by the Option Agreement to September 30, 2015.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (the “CSE”) has agreed to waive its minimum issue price requirements with respect to the Share Issuance; however, the TSX Venture Exchange (the “TSXV”) was unable to grant a similar waiver. Consequently, in order to proceed with the Share Issuance, KWG will seek to delist its common shares from the TSXV subject to meeting any voluntary delisting requirements (including board approval).

KWG has the right to earn an 80% interest in Bold’s interest in the chromite resources comprising the Black Horse claims, and a 20% interest in their non-chromite resources, by making the payments and exploration expenditures required under the Option Agreement. KWG has incurred $5.8 million of a total of $8 million of exploration expenditures that Bold is required to complete by March 31, 2016 in order for Bold to earn a 50% joint venture interest in the claims, with operatorship of all subsequent programs.

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Mining downturn a chance for governments to craft competitive policies: World Bank (Northern Miner – March 13, 2015)

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

Like other regions, Latin America has seen a slowdown in mining investment thanks to the global decline in commodities prices.

But however much it might hurt in the short-term, the slowdown represents a chance for Latin American countries to rethink their strategies around mining and the industry’s strategic role in spurring economic development, says Paulo de Sa, Practice Manager with the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice group (GEEDR).

“It’s an opportunity for governments to think about competitiveness of their industries,” he said at a World Bank sponsored forum on mining in Latin America during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in March.

While in previous commodity downturns, countries cut taxes to remain competitive in a “race to the bottom,” de Sa is hopeful that this time around, governments will explore other ways to achieve competitiveness. “We believe there are many, many ways of continuing to be attractive to mining investment other than just reducing the taxes,” he said.

To give governments some ideas on how to do that, the forum heard from officials from several different jurisdictions inside and outside of Latin America.

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[Northern Ontario – Iroquois Falls] Small Town Shut Down – The Agenda’s Steve Paikin interviews Michael Shea, Jamison Steeve, Madge Richardson and Stan Sudol (March 11, 2015)

http://theagenda.tvo.org/ Resolute Forest Products is shutting down the newsprint mill in Iroquois Falls, Ontario, a move that will result in the loss of 182 jobs , continuing to erode livelihoods in a town of just 4600. The forestry company essentially built Iroquois Falls a century ago and was its largest employer. Like many other single-resource …

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THE LUNCH: The skinny on ex-Xstrata boss Mick Davis and X2 – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – March 13, 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.

LONDON — There’s a lot less to Mick Davis than there used to be.

Let’s start with the man himself. When he was running Xstrata PLC, the mining company he sold to Glencore PLC, the world’s biggest commodities trader, in 2013, he was a big man – “Big Mick,” they called him. He topped out at 317 pounds and had developed Type 2 diabetes. In the interests of survival, he launched a hostile raid on his own girth. Today, Big Mick is on the verge of skinny, at 196 pounds, a downsizing so successful that he no longer has to take diabetes medications.

I ask him how he did it. “You eat less, exercise more, and stick to it,” he says. “I took up cycling and I love it.”  His day job has shrunk too, even more so. At its peak just before the 2008 financial crisis, Xstrata, which bought Canada’s Falconbridge Ltd. in 2006, had a market value of about $85-billion (U.S.), making it the fourth- or fifth-largest mining company in the world, with almost 70,000 employees and contractors.

Today, he runs X2 Resources, which has 10 employees and zero assets other than $4-billion of investor capital, some of it from Canadian pension funds, sitting idly in the bank.

X2 was launched a year ago and has been shopping for mining assets or operating companies, but has come up short. Mr. Davis admits he is finding it harder to buy now than in the previous decade, when he spent $35-billion on 40 rapid-fire acquisitions in one of the greatest bull runs in history. “We’ve given some people an expression of interest,” he said. “I expect to do a deal this year.”

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Gina Rinehart blames high mining costs on government – by Julie-anne Sprague (Sydney Morning Herald – March 11, 2015)

http://www.smh.com.au/

Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart has attacked federal and state governments for inflicting high costs on local miners, which are battling plunging iron ore prices as global supply swells.

Mrs Rinehart, who is building on her father’s iron ore legacy by developing the $10 billion Roy Hill mine in Pilbara, also endorsed expansion strategies by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. The major miners have come under fire for flooding iron ore markets and depressing iron ore prices.

“You know if Australia doesn’t export, someone else will,” Mrs Rinehart told Fairfax Media on the sidelines of the Global Iron Ore & Steel Forecast conference, in Perth, on Wednesday.

Mrs Rinehart, who is estimated by BRW to have a $20 billion fortune, said it was high costs, rather than low iron ore prices that affected her Roy Hill project.

“What affects the project is high costs,” Mrs Rinehart said. “As I have said so many times it is really important government cost burdens are lowered. We have regulations; be it approval processes, be it permits, be it licences, be it the checks that have to go on after those compliances.” She said governments needed to take regulatory costs seriously.

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Mongolia: Between a Rock and a Hard Place – by Marcel Plichta (International Policy Digest – March 12, 2015)

http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/

Since the establishment of a democracy in Mongolia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, foreign interests have attempted to reassert control over the landlocked piece of steppe between China and Russia.

Mongolia’s position, located between two ambitious powers, means that it is the target of Chinese and Russian influence, often to the detriment of the fledgling democracy and its people. Historically Mongolia’s geographical position and nomadic inhabitants (of which there are still many) has made it vulnerable to the influence of its neighbors. Mongolia was subjugated to both Beijing and Moscow at different times and still struggles with the political influence of both powers.

Economics further complicates Mongolia’s diplomatic issues; vast amounts of mineral wealth have been discovered in Mongolia since the early 90’s including large reserves of copper, gold, and coal. Previously Mongolia’s weak economy, based on pastoral products such as beef and cashmere production, meant that it provided very little potential wealth for powers seeking to control it.

These discoveries have led to serious interest from a resource-hungry China, which accounts for 89% of Mongolia’s exports, as well as Russia, which faces more competition for resources in an ever more hostile Europe.

Despite the renewed interest from its neighbors, most foreign companies involved in the Mongolian mining sector have been Canadian or Australian, of the 11 foreign companies invested in copper production, 9 of them were Australian or Canadian.

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This Area is the ‘Future of the Mining Industry… I’m not Interested in Anywhere Else’ – André Gaumond, Virginia Mines – by Henry Bonner (Goldseek.com – March 12, 2015)

http://www.goldseek.com/

André Gaumond has led the discoveries of six gold deposits in his career.

His flagship discovery, Eléonore, earned his company around C$420 million when they sold it to Goldcorp Inc1. He retained a royalty interest, which earned Virginia a buyout from Osisko Royalties for around C$520 million2.

They turned C$18 million spent on exploration into a discovery that earned them around C$1 billion. André’s repeat successes don’t come just from being lucky. He’s been exploring the same region in Northern Quebec for his entire career, making him the leader for exploration and development in that region.

André’s company, Virginia Mines, has announced a merger with Osisko Royalties Ltd. this year. Now he’s planning to get his hands dirty once again and aims to put another significant discovery to his name. As Pierre Lassonde once told him, “Land possession is not something. Land possession is everything.”

I spoke with André about how insights he had as a young man led him to some of the most valuable – and overlooked — land for mineral exploration in the world.

Henry: André, if you were just now entering the exploration sector, where would you be most interested in going and what do you think you would do to start out? André: Well, as you know, we decided to focus in Northern Quebec. Virginia Mines decided to focus in Northern Quebec right from the beginning.

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These gold hunting drones and drills don’t need a permit to make your rich – Business Network News Andrew Bell interviews Shawn Ryan (March 5, 2015)

http://www.bnn.ca/

Article by Jeff Lagerquist, BNN.ca staff

The people behind GroundTruth Exploration Inc. are the Navy SEALS of prospecting. They use innovative technologies to gather precise intelligence. They can work under the harshest conditions deep in the wilderness, almost anywhere in the world, leaving behind virtually no trace. The data they gather can literally be worth millions. And they get the job done with a level of speed and efficiency that threatens to upend the way mineral deposits are found.

Shawn Ryan, principal at GroundTruth relishes the comparison to the elite U.S. fighting force, and says his Yukon Territory-based company’s potent combination of existing technologies newly applied to the prospecting industry can cut exploration costs by 80 percent.

“What would normally cost us two field seasons in the Yukon, and $500,000 to $700,000, we do it in two weeks, any time of the year, for under $100,000,” he said.

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Franco-Nevada ready to bankroll cash strapped producers ahead of exploration drought – Business Network News Andrew Bell interviews Pierre Lassonde (March 3, 2015)

 

http://www.bnn.ca/

Article Jeff Lagerquist, BNN.ca staff

It’s a buyer’s market for gold royalty companies as cash-strapped miners look to fill the capital void left by fleeting venture capital and bank debt. Few know this as well as Franco-Nevada (FNV.TO 1.17%), the Toronto-based rival of Silver Wheaton (SLW.TO 2.16%) who announced a dividend for the first quarter of 2015 earlier this month.

Pierre Lassonde, Franco-Nevada’s chair, is making big bets ahead of the exploration drought he sees five-to-ten years down the road to the tune of U.S. $900 million in 2014.

Franco-Nevada announced in October it’s providing an up-front deposit of $648 million to acquire the gold and silver stream from Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s (FCX.N -4.1%) Candelaria operation in Chile from Lundin Mining Corporation (LUN.TO -2.14%). It’s the biggest deal of the year for Franco, the royalty and streaming investor that became famous for acquiring a royalty on Barrick Gold’s Nevada mine in 1985.

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Northern Development and Mines minister takes issue with NDP advisor’s Ring of Fire comments – by Leith Dunick (tbnewswatch.com – March 13, 2015)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/default.aspx

Ontario’s Minister of Northern Development and Mines on Friday slammed comments made Thursday by former NDP leader Howard Hampton on what he said was a lack of progress developing the Ring of Fire.

Michael Gravelle said he was startled and offended by how “flippant and dismissive” Hampton was in saying the province has done nothing in a decade to move the multi-billion-dollar project forward.

“I had to ask myself the question, ‘Has he actually looked at the regional framework agreement that we have signed and negotiated with the Mattawa First Nations?’”

Calling the framework historic and unprecedented, Gravelle on Friday said the process is anything but superficial and certainly more than just firing off occasional press releases, as Hampton, now a paid Ring of Fire advisor of the federal NDP, intonated a day earlier.

The minister said the Ring of Fire isn’t going to happen overnight and the right steps are being taken. The framework sets in place guidelines for regional infrastructure and takes into consideration enhanced environmental monitory, socio-economic issues and supports and resource revenue sharing.

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Government failing to fuel Ring of Fire, says Ontario Chamber of Commerce – by Mark Sabourin (EcoLog.com – March 13, 2015)

http://www.ecolog.com/default.asp

The stink of the Cliffs mining debacle has soured the air around Ontario’s Ring of Fire and has slowed pace of development in the remote but mineral-rich area. Ontario should kick-start development afresh by fast-tracking the most promising proposal on the table and moving aggressively on an infrastructure plan. If it does, dollars will flow into the region from the federal government and the private sector.

So says the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) in its just-released report card on the Ring of Fire. In 2014, it outlined the potential the region holds and laid out a path to further development. This year’s 2015 report card evaluates the provincial government’s progress against that plan and gives it a failing grade.

Stan Sudol, communications consultant, mining columnist and owner/editor of RepublicOfMining.com, calls it “a stunning indictment of government incompetence, both provincial and federal.”

The OCC conservatively estimates that the first 10 years of development of the Ring of Fire will add up to $9.4 billion to the GDP, sustain up to 5,500 jobs annually, and generate $2 billion in government revenue.

The Ring of Fire is everything it’s cracked up to be, Sudol told EcoLog News, and likely more. Once more of the region becomes road-accessible — inevitable once development gets underway — geologists are confident that even more discoveries will follow. If northwestern Ontario is a mineral-rich iceberg, the Ring of Fire may be only its visible tip.

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