Republic of Mining

Sudbury mines given hundreds of health and safety work orders (CBC News Sudbury – October 29, 2014)

October 29, 2014

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

Orders cover such areas as hoist maintenance, ventilation, and preventing water accumulation

Details of health and safety orders issued to Sudbury-area mines hint at the dangers of working underground.

The Ministry of Labour provided CBC News a breakdown of orders that have been given to First Nickel’s Lockerby Mine, Vale’s Stobie and Creighton Mines, Xstrata’s Nickel Rim South and Quadra FNX/KGMH International’s Levack mine over the past three years.

The orders cover such areas as hoist maintenance, ventilation, and preventing water accumulation. Out of the five, Lockerby Mine had the most orders, totalling more than 200. Stobie had the second highest number, at more than 180. The other three had fewer than 100 each.

NDP mining critic and Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson speculated on the varying number of work orders issued to the mines.

“Is it the style of management? Is it what is going on with the workers? But clearly, we need to make sure that whatever is going on there is properly dealt with,” he said. Bisson said the number and types of orders don’t provide a clear enough picture to make any quick judgments.

Gold Mining Stocks Diverge in Wake of Metal’s Decline – by Liezel Hill (Bloomberg News – October 28, 2014)

October 29, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

A chasm is opening up between the best- and worst-performing gold mining stocks as the price of the metal languishes near a four-year low.

Companies with low-cost mines and little or no net debt, including Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD) and Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS), have beaten gold’s 2.5 percent rise this year. More indebted rivals including Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX), the world’s largest producer, and Yamana Gold Inc. (YRI) have declined more than 15 percent.

There were 115 percentage points separating the average of the five best and five worst performers this year through yesterday in the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Global Gold Sector Index, almost double the spread in the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“There’s been a very big divergence between the performance of gold equities globally,” Neil Gregson, a London-based natural-resources equities fund manager at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a phone interview. Last year, gold stocks fell more or less across the board as the metal plunged the most in three decades. In contrast, this year “it’s very, very stock-specific,” Gregson said.

Gold miners as a group are trading at their cheapest relative to the price of the metal in at least 30 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gold futures, which are wallowing about $50 above a four-year low, rose 0.2 percent to $1,231.20 an ounce at 9:34 a.m. in New York.

South African gold miner eyes biogas to power underground trains – by Wendell Roelf (Reuters India – October 28, 2014)

October 29, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

CAPE TOWN, Oct 28 (Reuters) – A South African gold mining firm trying to cut carbon emissions and costs and improve the health of its workers could be the first globally to fuel trains with biogenic gas formed over millennia deep beneath the ground, one producer said on Tuesday.

Molopo South Africa, which holds the country’s first and so far only onshore petroleum production license, said it was partnering with Sibanye Gold to start underground testing next year on a locomotive that has been converted from diesel to run on compressed natural gas (CNG).

Biogenic gas, produced by bacteria interacting with ancient decomposing plants to release methane, has been found in South Africa’s Free State province, close to the mining operations of Harmony Gold, Sibanye Gold, and Petra Diamonds.

Although there has been research into its use in powering trains, it has never gone beyond the prototype stage, experts say. But the CNG locomotive was recently tested above ground and it managed to pull eight wagons carrying a 30 tonne load, the equivalent of those pulled by diesel engines, Stefano Marani, a director at Molopo, said.

“Which is a very big milestone to move to the next phase of what we believe is a world first,” Marani told Reuters. There was also a massive reduction in diesel emissions, with big health benefits for mine workers.

Gold Hill Depot Reception to Unveil Painting and Celebrate Nevada Sesquicentennial

October 29, 2014

http://www.comstockfoundation.org/

OCTOBER 6, 2014

Funds Raised for the Preservation of the Comstock Historic District

The rarely-seen interior of the Gold Hill Depot will open to the public for a special Nevada Day event. After extensive restorations by Storey County, the Virginia City Tourism Commission, and the Comstock Foundation for History and Culture, the Depot will be the location of a grand reception on October 31, celebrating the sesquicentennial of Nevada statehood and the unveiling of “Nine Cheers for the Silver State,” a painting by renowned Nevada artist Steven Saylor.

Saylor’s painting takes its title from a headline that appeared in the Gold Hill Daily News on October 31, 1864. Prints of the painting are available for purchase to raise funds for the historic preservation efforts of the Comstock Foundation. The champagne reception will be from 3:30 to 5:00 pm. The ticket price of $30 includes a ride on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to and from its Virginia City terminus to the Gold Hill Depot. The train will depart from Virginia City at 3:00 pm, and it will return in time for a Virginia City parade celebrating 150 years of statehood. Tickets are available from the Virginia City Tourism Commission.

Saylor’s work depicts Governor Brian Sandoval as well as past governors Paul Laxalt, Bob List, Dick Bryan, and Bob Miller. In addition, the painting includes former First Ladies Dawn Gibbons and Dema Guinn, in honor of the Guinn and Gibbons administrations, and Corrado De Gasperis, Ron James and John Winfield, from the Comstock Foundation. Saylor has previously published prints of his popular painting as fundraisers for various causes. His earlier paintings include “Celebrity Train,” portraying notable country and western celebrities, and “Heavyweights,” that also depicted six former living governors.

New Cliffs CEO sees ‘zero hope,’ no asset sale in Ontario’s Ring of Fire – by Peter Koven (National Post – October 29, 2014)

October 29, 2014

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

The new chief executive of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. doubts that Ontario’s “Ring of Fire” will be developed for decades to come, or that anyone will buy his company’s rich chromite assets in the region in the near future.

Lourenco Goncalves, 55, said in an interview Tuesday that he has “zero hope” that a solution will be reached to spur on development in the region anytime soon.

“I don’t believe under my watch, and I plan to stay [alive] for the next 50 years… that the Ring of Fire will be developed,” he said.

A handful of junior mining companies, including KWG Resources Inc. and Noront Resources Ltd., are more optimistic and are interested in buying Cliffs’ Ring of Fire properties. But according to Mr. Goncalves, they all have the same problem: “They do not have any money.”

His comments have to be discouraging for the Ontario government, which made the Ring of Fire the centerpiece of its northern development plans. To date, Cleveland-based Cliffs is the only large mining company to take a serious interest in the area.

The Ring of Fire, located in the remote James Bay Lowlands, was discovered amid much fanfare in 2007. It is thought to hold about $60-billion of chromite, base metals and other minerals.

The not so great debate – Is gold manipulated or not? – by Bill Holter (Mineweb.com – October 28, 2014)

October 28, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Holter expresses his disappointment with the quality of the debate on gold manipulation at the New Orleans Investment Conference.

NEW ORLEANS – I attended the New Orleans Investment Conference this past week as the guest of Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee’s (GATA) Bill Murphy and Chris Powell for which I am highly grateful. There were many good and thoughtful speakers. I specifically wanted to attend this conference for two reasons; Alan Greenspan (Mr. Magoo) was a keynote speaker and I not so much wanted to hear what he had to say but, more importantly, how he answered audience questions.

What piqued my interest most about this conference, though, was the proposed debate between GATA’s Powell and Doug Casey of Casey Research. The topic was: “Is gold manipulated or not?” I had such high expectations for this but unfortunately was left disappointed.

The format was not much of a debate; each speaker was allowed seven minutes to lay out their case followed by a four minute rebuttal period each. The problem was, they did not interact nor did they debunk the other’s position. The debate, if you can call it that, was one-sided where Powell laid out documentation and fact while Casey gave us his opinion.

Powell started off and was pretty much 100% factual as he laid out printed documentation from the Federal Reserve and the BIS which confirms central bank activity in the gold market.

Botswana, Africa’s diamond, risks losing its sparkle – by Tiisetso Motsoeneng and Joe Brock (Globe and Mail – October 27, 2014)

October 28, 2014

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.

Reuters – When environmental scientist Bakang Bogopa graduated first in his class from the University of Botswana two years ago he did not expect that his first job would be moving furniture or that he would still be living off handouts from his mother.

Bogopa, who studied on a government scholarship, is among thousands of unemployed graduates in Botswana who exemplify both the country’s swift economic progress in the five decades since independence from Britain, and the challenges it now faces.

One of the world’s poorest countries in the 1970s, Botswana transformed into one of its fastest-growing economies by harnessing around $3-billion a year in diamond sales, to become the world’s biggest producer, and gained middle-income status.

The landlocked country of just two million has also been heralded as a beacon for African democracy, avoiding the conflict and corruption that has ravaged resource-rich countries across the continent.

But dependence on its wealth from the diamond industry is catching up with the southern African country.

Crude prices dive on Goldman Sachs forecast of $70 oil – by Shawn McCarthy, Carrie Tait and Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – October 28, 2014)

October 28, 2014

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.

OTTAWA and CALGARY — Crude prices dove below $80 (U.S.) a barrel in trading Monday after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. released a grim forecast that argued prices have further to fall and won’t recover until some U.S. unconventional oil producers are squeezed out of the market.

The United States has been the world’s fastest growing crude producer thanks to the shale oil boom on North Dakota and Texas, but Goldman said the pace will slow as North American crude prices plunge as low as $70 a barrel by next spring. They forecast West Texas Intermediate will average $75 a barrel in the second half of 2015, and $80 in 2016.

“We are lowering our oil price forecast to reflect the required slowdown in U.S. production growth,” Goldman analysts wrote. They rejected any suggestion that top producers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, would come to the rescue of global producers.

“We believe that OPEC will no longer act as the first-mover swing producer and that U.S. shale oil output will be called upon to fill this role,” they said.

Cliffs Turnaround Plan Derailed by Iron Ore at 5-Year Low – by Sonja Elmquist (Bloomberg News – October 27, 2014)

October 28, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Other assets are being sold off quickly. The sale of a minority holding in a graphite
mining company was completed in August. Goncalves said he’s trying to sell a chromite
project in Canada’s Ring of Fire mining region “as soon as I can.”

Activist investor Casablanca Capital LLC’s plan to revive the fortunes of the largest iron ore producer in the U.S. is crumbling as the price of the commodity drops to a five-year low.

Casablanca went public in January with demands for Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (CLF) to spin off or sell foreign mines and return more cash to investors. Casablanca won a proxy contest in July with the election of its slate of directors on the Cliffs board, one of whom was appointed chief executive officer.

With the iron ore market now in a worse state than it was at the start of the year, Cliffs may struggle to sell mines for a satisfactory price. Instead of raising its dividend, the Cleveland-based miner may have to eliminate the payout entirely, analysts at Citigroup Inc. and Nomura Holdings Inc. say.

A higher dividend “was something Casablanca promised before I joined,” Chairman and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said by phone in an Oct. 14 interview. “I’m not Casablanca.”

COLUMN-Why China blurs the global aluminium picture – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – October 27, 2014)

October 28, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Oct 27 (Reuters) – Is the world aluminium market in a supply-demand deficit or surplus? It’s a simple enough question but an extraordinarily difficult one to answer.

That much was clear at last week’s LME Seminar. Two respected bank analysts, Citi’s David Wilson and Natixis’ Nic Brown, offered diametrically different views.

Deficit, according to Brown, and one that will steadily increase over the next two years. Surplus, according to Wilson, with no sign of deficit until 2017 at the earliest.

Calculating supply-demand balances in any industrial metal is a tricky business, but the problems are compounded in aluminium.

There is, for example, no aluminium equivalent to the International Study Groups that do so much of the statistical leg-work in the copper, zinc, lead and nickel markets. The International Aluminium Institute (IAI) releases monthly production figures but only for primary metal, leaving the secondary scrap component of the supply chain shrouded in statistical darkness.

Ontario Premier Wynne’s China visit seeks to reduce U.S. reliance – by Adrian Morrow (Globe and Mail – October 25, 2014)

October 28, 2014

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.

Mr. Fang suggested the two countries also work together on the Ring of Fire, a large
chromite deposit north of Thunder Bay. China could use the minerals, he said, if
Ontario can get the necessary rail line built to haul the ore out of the Ring’s
remote location.

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne will make a full-court press for trade in China next week as she seeks to expand her province’s sluggish economy and wean it off its long-standing dependence on the American market.

The trip unfolds against a backdrop of heightened tension in Sino-Canadian relations. Ottawa and Beijing have accused each other of espionage in recent months, while China continues to grapple with lingering pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And Ms. Wynne, who is making her first overseas trip as Premier, is pledging not to shy away from raising thorny human-rights issues during her visit.

“I absolutely support peoples’ right to freedom of speech and the right to gather peacefully. I’ve said that to Chinese representatives here, I will say that in China,” she said in an interview at her Queen’s Park office.

Cliffs books $5.9bn loss on iron-ore, coal asset write-downs – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – October 28, 2014)

October 28, 2014

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – US miner Cliffs Natural Resources reported a third-quarter net loss of $5.9-billion, or $38.49 a share, after booking a $5.7-billion write-down of its iron-ore and coal assets.

The Cleveland, Ohio-based company, who came under new management in July, following activist shareholder Casablanca Capital’s victory in a proxy contest, wrote down $4.5-billion related to the Bloom Lake iron-ore project, in Quebec, $28-million related to the shuttered Wabush iron-ore mine, in Labrador, $390-million related to its Asia Pacific Iron Ore (APIO) business segment and $539-million related to its North American Coal assets.

The company also booked a $254-million charge on its chromite assets, after indefinitely pulling out of Ontario’s Ring of Fire earlier this year.

Excluding the one-off charges, the company reported an adjusted profit of $33-million, or $0.21 a share, compared with an adjusted net income of $144-million, or $0.88 a share, in the same three-month period ended October 30 a year earlier.

Consolidated revenues of $1.3-billion were 16% lower year-on-year, mainly owing to iron-ore pricing sliding 32% in the past year, while metallurgical coal pricing declined 17%.

Innu want say in Plan Nord – by Geoffrey Vendeville (Montreal Gazette – October 26, 2014)

October 28, 2014

http://montrealgazette.com/

For Quebec’s Innu First Nations, the provincial government’s lucrative northern development plan represents a “golden opportunity,” under the right circumstances, said chief Gilbert Dominique.

“We’ve said it many times: We’re not against development. We just want it to be done in a way that is respectful of our way of life and the environment, and that there be economic benefits for First Nations,” he said.

The traditional territory of the province’s nine Innu bands covers one-third of the land slated for development under Quebec’s Plan Nord, Innu leaders said in a parliamentary commission Friday.

Seven Innu villages are located on the Côte-Nord, two on Lac-St-Jean and two more across the border in Labrador. Numbering about 16,000, the Innu are the second largest native group in Quebec.

Dominique said his community of Mashteuiatsh isn’t immune to the social ills that afflict other disadvantaged First Nations including higher levels of unemployment, addiction and violence. The Plan Nord may be a way to improve their situation and give younger generations more hope for the future, he said.

Mali eyes $9.5bn rail projects to unlock iron ore, bauxite deposits – by Tiemoko Diallo and Bate Felix (Reuters/The Africa Report – October 27, 2014)

October 28, 2014

http://www.theafricareport.com/

Bamako – Landlocked Mali aims to diversify its mining sector away from gold with Chinese-built rail projects worth $9.5 billion that would link it to the Atlantic coast, even as slowing Chinese growth and falling commodity prices cool investment.

The West African nation – the continent’s third-largest gold producer – said last month it had signed a string of investment deals with China totalling $11 billion, with most of this going to finance the rail deals.

Chinese authorities, however, have not confirmed the investment. Mali said $8 billion would finance a 900-km (560-mile) railway to Guinea’s port capital Conakry and $1.5 billion would renovate a rail link to Senegal’s capital Dakar, Mali’s main gateway port.

The improved transport links would attract investors to under-explored resources such as iron ore, bauxite and uranium that are bulkier and more costly to transport than gold. “The infrastructure will enable Mali to end its dependency on gold,” said Lassana Guindo, an adviser at the mines ministry.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita is striving to kick start Mali’s economy after a brief French-led war in early 2013 against northern Islamist rebels dragged it into recession.

Press Release: Ultra-Deep Mining Network issues Pan-Canadian Call for Proposals

October 27, 2014

Sudbury, ON (October 27, 2014) – Canada’s Ultra-Deep Mining Network (UDMN) is pleased to announce a Pan-Canadian – Call for Proposals for its Think Deep Program.

This $46 million business-driven network, managed by the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) aims to become the leading expert in ultra-deep (below 2.5km) research and innovation and to solve the challenges that impact resource extraction in these environments. Recognizing the importance of deep mining, earlier this year, the federal government’s Business‐led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL‐NCE) program awarded $15 million to Ultra-Deep Mining Network.

This program aims to support solution-providers capable of creating the industry-needed tools and technologies that will help ultra-deep mines (below 2.5kms) to operate more effectively and safely, generate more value, improve the human environment and enhance mine productivity in the short term.

Working to amplify and expedite commercial value and enhance ultra-deep mining innovations in Canada and beyond, this program is intended to help the mining industry accelerate research and development, increase investment in R&D and/or deploy proven innovative and advanced technologies. This program is not intended to support fundamental research, but rather apply new forward-looking technologies to mining at depth.