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UPDATE 2-Brazil’s Vale profit falls; prices undermine record output – by Stephen Eisenhammer (Reuters India – July 31, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA posted a sharp decline in profit from the previous quarter as lower iron ore prices undermined record production of the steel-making ingredient.

Vale, the world’s largest producer of iron ore, reported second-quarter net income of $1.43 billion, down 43 percent on the previous quarter and below the average analyst estimate of $1.89 billion in a Reuters survey.

“It was a very challenging environment where the price of our most important product has dropped by 15 percent,” Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said in a video accompanying results.

Net income was more than three times higher than the year-ago quarter, when a one-time foreign exchange charge slashed profit to $424 million. Prices for iron ore .IO62-CNI=SI have dropped by nearly 30 percent this year, hitting a 22-month low in June.

Iron ore production rose 12.6 percent to 79.45 million tonnes from a year earlier, as better weather conditions combined with ramp-ups at its two main mine sites in Brazil.

Mega miners Vale and Australia’s Rio Tinto Ltd and BHP Billiton Ltd are ramping up output and slashing costs in an attempt to increase market share.

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What is the role of rail in Ontario? – by Greg Gormick

http://northernpolicy.wordpress.com/

Greg Gormick is a Toronto transportation writer and policy adviser. His clients have included CN, CP, VIA and numerous elected officials and government transportation agencies. This column was originally posted on the Northern Policy Institue website.

That question was at the heart of the work of a provincial task force appointed in 1980 by Premier Bill Davis and headed by MPP Margaret Scrivener. The group’s appointment was a response to many then-current issues and trends in railroading. VIA Rail Canada had just been launched by the federal government to take over the crumbling passenger services operated by CP and CN.

The energy crises of 1973-1974 and 1979 had caused many people to recognize the fuel efficiency of rail compared with cars, trucks and planes. The derailment and explosion of a CP freight train carrying dangerous commodities in Mississauga in November 1979 raised serious questions about rail safety and investment.

Thirty-three years after the Scrivener task force delivered its final report, The Future Role of Rail, it’s appropriate to again ask many of the same questions. The world has changed greatly in ensuing years and so has railroading, particularly in northern Ontario. But many of the issues explored by the task force are hauntingly familiar – and still unresolved.

Today, the symptoms indicating our once proud and efficient rail system is stressed include:

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The 800 Pound Gorilla in the room for rare earth sustainability in North America – thorium – by Alessandro Bruno (Investorintel.com – August 3, 2014)

http://investorintel.com/

The West must deal with thorium content limits before it can hope to become rare-earths independent…

James Kennedy works closely with the Thorium Energy Alliance to promote US legislation for the commercial development of thorium energy systems and rare earths. And when he asked me to review a video where he presents a paper entitled “Creating a Multinational Platform, Thorium, Energy and Rare Earth Value Chain – a Global Imbalance in the Rare Earth Market” – it occurred to me that Tracy’s frequently referenced ‘800 lb. gorilla’ in the proverbial rare earth room was overdue for discussion: thorium.

Kennedy’s essential argument is that the rare earth imbalance is largely the result of regulations with unintended consequences: “Rare earths and thorium have become linked at the mineralogical and geopolitical level.” In other words, thorium should be considered as a rare earth mineral.

There is, in fact, a close relationship between thorium and rare earths; they often come together. In fact, monazite, was first mined to produce thorium and rather than rare earths. In the 19th century, thorium was used to make gas mantles. Later, with the development of technology that required rare earths to function, monazite started to be mined for elements other than thorium. Meanwhile, monazite itself is a by-product.

It is separates easily, through gravity and at almost no cost, in the mining of titanium or zirconium, such that the monazite can be said to be produced practically free of charge. The United States was the leading supplier of monazite – which was in the main source of rare earths – in the first decades of the rare earths industry (the post WW2 period).

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Zimbabwe Sees $1.6 Billion Platinum Pact With Russia – by Godfrey Marawanyika (Bloomberg News – August 04, 2014)

http://www.businessweek.com/

A group of Russian partners will next month sign an agreement with the Zimbabwean government to develop a mine on a platinum deposit requiring total investment of about $1.6 billion, the African country’s mines minister said.

OOO VI Holding and state corporations Rostec and Vnesheconombank plan to confirm their participation in the Darwendale project at an event in Harare, the capital, Walter Chidakwa said in an interview.

“The project will naturally involve mining, putting up concentrators to concentrate the ore and they will then put up a smelter, a PGM smelter,” Chidakwa said yesterday.

Darwendale will be developed in phases, the first of which will be the construction of a mine, without a smelter, at a cost of $400 million to $500 million, the minister said. Mining would start next year, initially as an open-pit operation for two-to-three years. Chidakwa and Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa were in Russia last week for a visit that ended Aug. 2.

“The visit was mainly to go and see members of the consortium, including the bank, and we had very useful discussions, very successful discussions,” Chidakwa said.

Russian Natural Resources Minister Denis Khramov last week met Chidakwa and Chinamasa to discuss possible cooperation in Zimbabwean mining projects, the Moscow-based ministry said in a statement today.

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A sunny Ontario experiment gone wrong – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – August 4, 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.

That glare coming off selected southern Ontario farmlands these days is not the result of some secret state experiment with atomic vegetables. No, it’s the product of another form of state-sanctioned mad science that is costing Ontarians dearly without doing diddly to improve the environment.

After Germany and California, Ontario is “enjoying” its day in the sun as a global hot spot for solar power. Photovoltaic panels are carpeting fertile and fallow farmlands at a furious rate this summer as solar power promoters rush to complete projects before the subsidy gusher slows.

By the end of 2015, more than 2,000 megawatts of solar power will be connected to the Ontario grid as developers take advantage of the province’s feed-in-tariff, guaranteeing them a heady two-decade return on their investment, courtesy of the weary Ontario electricity consumer.

The newly re-elected Liberal government scaled down the FIT program last year, but not before a small group of savvy operators hit the sweet spot by locking into its risk-free cash flow. One 10MW solar farm under construction in eastern Ontario’s cottage country will get 44 cents for every kilowatt-hour of electricity it produces over 20 years.

Compare that to the average 8.55 cents per kWh that Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator says it cost to produce power in the province in 2013.

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Ukrainian Redress: ‘A dark chapter’ [Sudbury/Canada History] – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – July 5, 2014)

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

A shameful part of our history will be acknowledged this month when a plaque recognizing the internment of Ukrainians is installed at Hnatyshyn Park.

During the First World War, thousands of Ukrainians were imprisoned in labour camps across Canada — including ones in Kapuskasing and Petawawa — even though no disloyalty had been shown on their part.

“It was a dark chapter that no-one wants to talk about,” said Stacey Zembrzycki, a Sudbury native and historian at Concordia University. “We’re 100 years later and a large segment of the population still doesn’t know it happened.”

Reticence extended to the Ukrainians themselves, as many of those who weren’t imprisoned were still deemed “enemy aliens” of Canada. It was a stamp they were eager to forget.

Zembrzycki interviewed 82 aging members of Sudbury’s Ukrainian community for a book she is releasing in September, and found very few would talk about this period. “For my great-grandfather’s generation, there was silence and shame associated with it,” she said. “And I think they felt it was better to not acknowledge their heritage or something like that could happen again.”

Eyed suspiciously by those in their adopted country and called “bohunks” behind their backs — or even to their faces — many Ukrainians kept a low profile and anglicized their last names.

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Cliffs wins victory in Ring of Fire court case – by Sudbury Northern Life Staff (August 1, 2014)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

It’ll be up to Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro to decide if Cliffs Natural Resources gets permission for an overland transportation route into the Ring of Fire.

On July 29, an Ontario Divisional Court set aside a decision reached by the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner last September that denied Cliffs an easement for a road to reach its Black Thor chromite deposit atop the mining claims of a rival company, KWG Resources.

Cliffs, which has halted all exploration on its chromite project, launched the appeal last October. The case was heard in Toronto, June 16-17.

The bone of contention with Cliffs has been over the use of surface rights by KWG to stake a 330-kilometre long corridor using mining claims from Nakina north to the exploration camps in the James Bay lowlands.

Cliffs contended that KWG was holding other mining companies hostage by blocking a critical path into the region. KWG, through its Canada Chrome subsidiary, wants to use the corridor for a future railroad.

KWG also has a 30-per-cent stake in the Big Daddy chromite deposit that it shares in an adversarial relationship with Cliffs.

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South Africa: Nationalising the Mines Is Not Socialism – by Terry Bell (All Africa.com – August 1, 2014)

http://allafrica.com/

Nationalise the mines. That is a demand taken up loudly in recent months by the Economic Freedom Fighters. It is a demand long made by many in the labour movement and it has been given added impetus with the Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) deision to dispose of, or close down, some of its older underground mines.

But those both for and against nationalisation tend to see this demand as “socialist”, as an alternative to the present capitalist system. It is not.

In fact, to equate nationalisation with socialism is as erroneous as blaming the Amplats decision to dispose of mines on the recent strike and on the wage demands won by miners. Yet this blame game is in full swing, peppered with jargon that owes more to blind emotion than rational thought.

In a public relations sense, it is convenient for Amplats that its decision is blamed on the strike and higher wages. But the truth is that the move has long been on the cards — and makes economic sense for the company.

As part of the global capitalist system, Amplats needs to compete as efficiently and effectively as possible in order to accumulate the profits that reward shareholders and are ploughed back into making the business more profitable. Competition and accumulation. This is the underlying dynamic that defines the system, nothing else.

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Synthetics pose a conundrum for world diamond industry – by Ari Rabinovitch (Reuters U.K. – July 31, 2014)

http://uk.reuters.com/

TEL AVIV – (Reuters) – Diamonds are a girl’s best friend – but only if they are natural.

That is the message mining companies and luxury jewellers are keen to instil in consumers as the diamond trade faces a growing challenge from the production of synthetic diamonds.

Global diamond jewellery sales are worth more than $72 billion (42.6 billion pounds) a year, according to the World Diamond Council, and jewellers like Tiffany (TIF.N) and diamond miners led by De Beers stress that a jewel mined at great expense, and often with great risk, is infinitely more valuable than one made by man.

But it can be hard to tell the difference.

Synthetic diamonds can be manufactured in a laboratory to the extent that they have the same properties as natural ones, raising the risk that a synthetic product could one day inadvertently end up in a luxury jeweller’s showroom.

“God help the major diamond jeweller, be it Cartier, Tiffany, Van Cleef, anybody, who puts a piece of jewellery out there and it’s later found to be having synthetic diamonds in it without disclosure. That fear is what’s driving the industry,” said Martin Rapaport, chairman of the Rapaport Group, which is the primary source of diamond price information around the world.

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Increased demand for South African smelting tech – by Pimani Baloyi (MiningWeekly.com – August 1, 2014)

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

As Africa’s mining industries consider new methods of processing precious metals and base metals, the demand for South African induction-heating technologies on the continent is increasing, says induction-heating solutions company Hot Platinum.

Hot Platinum MD Ali Brey tells Mining Weekly that this renewed demand has significantly increased company clientele on the continent. The company manufactures induction-heating equipment and develops technology for melting and casting gold, platinum, copper and various other metals.

“There is a significant increase in the demand for our equipment from West, Central and Southern Africa owing to the number of new mining operations starting and many African countries wanting to process their metals in their countries,” he explains.

Brey highlights Hot Platinum’s status as a South African company as a contributing factor to its success in the African market, as it understands the African environment better than European and Asian competitors and can tailor clients’ systems and technologies to the African environment. The company customises systems and technologies to suit client specifications.

Brey also points out that mining companies operating in Africa take part in the development of local expertise when contracting Hot Platinum.

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Cliffs Natural Resources Official Response to Ontario Divisional Court Ruling (August 1, 2014)

August 1, 2014 William Boor, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, Government Affairs and Chief Strategy Officer stated, “We’re very encouraged and pleased with the decision that came out Wednesday. The original Mining and Lands Commissioner decision created an unnecessary barrier that contributed to delays in the development of the region. Clearly, that decision was a …

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Press Release: Divisional Court Says KWG May Negotiate Conditions of Easement Under Public Lands Act, Not Withhold Consent Under Mining Act

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Aug. 1, 2014) – KWG Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:KWG)(FRANKFURT:KW6) reports that the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Wednesday released its decision in the appeal brought by 2274659 Ontario Inc., a subsidiary of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (“Cliffs”), of the judgment of the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner (“MLC”) issued September 10, 2013. The appeal was heard on June 16 and 17, 2014. Wednesday’s decision allowed the appeal, set aside the decision of the MLC and granted the original application to dispense with the consent of KWG subsidiary Canada Chrome Corporation (“CCC”) to an application for an easement over CCC claims.

The Divisional Court reasons held, in part: “Whether or not it is in the public interest to grant an easement for a road is a matter for the Minister of Natural Resources to determine, after an environmental assessment and consultation with First Nations and other affected interests. It is for the Minister to determine whether the easement should be granted in the public interest and on what terms. CCC will be able to participate in that process.” And elsewhere: “I would add that the issue being decided under s.51(4) of the Mining Act does not deprive CCC of its ability at the next stage to oppose Cliffs’ easement application or to ask for conditions that would protect its legitimate interests in its mining claims.”

Counsel for KWG are reviewing the Divisional Court’s extensive reasons for judgment.

About KWG: KWG has a 30% interest in the Big Daddy chromite deposit and the right to earn 80% of the Black Horse chromite where resources are being defined. KWG has also acquired interests in provisional patents including a method for the direct reduction of chromite to metalized iron and chrome using natural gas.

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Mittal, Glencore Said to Be Among Potential Simandou Bids – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – July 31, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Lakshmi Mittal’s ArcelorMittal (MT) and Glencore Plc are among potential bidders for Guinea’s Simandou project, the world’s largest untapped iron-ore deposit, after it was seized from Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz in April, according to people familiar with the matter.

ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, has declared an interest in the bidding process for two licenses covering the Simandou project in Guinea, according to four people who asked not to be identified as the talks aren’t public. Glencore is also interested, people familiar with its plans said.

Leading mining and steelmaking companies are jostling for a share of the riches contained in Simandou, a remote, iron-bearing mountain range, to take advantage of prices for the raw material that have risen about 50 percent since 2008. Guinea has estimated that Simandou may cost $20 billion to develop, largely because it needs a 650-kilometer (400-mile) rail link.

Spokesmen for ArcelorMittal and Baar, Switzerland-based Glencore declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Glencore was interested in Simandou.

The iron-ore position of Glencore pales in comparison with rivals BHP Billiton Ltd., Rio Tinto Group and Vale SA. (VALE5) Still, Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg has previously expressed reluctance to invest in expensive new mining operations known as “greenfield” projects.

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B.C. approves $5.3-billion copper-gold KSM mine – by James Keller (Globe and Mail – July 30, 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.

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press – The British Columbia government has granted environmental approval for a proposed $5.3-billion mine in the province’s north, which would tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world and has already received support from local First Nations.

The provincial environment and mines ministers issued an environmental assessment certificate Wednesday to Seabridge Gold Inc. for the company’s KSM project, also known as Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell.

Seabridge has applied to open the project more than 900 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, where the company says it would be able to mine 38.2 million ounces of gold and almost 5 billion kilograms of copper – enough to produce 130,000 tonnes of ore per day for up to 52 years.

The company says the project would create 1,800 jobs during construction and more than 1,000 permanent jobs if it gets up and running, though Seabridge also notes it still must find a partner to fund and actually build the mine.

B.C. Mines Minister Bill Bennett said the project would be a boon to the province’s economy and First Nations in the region.

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Australian plus-sized model Robyn Lawley opens up about her nude coal mining protest (News.com.au – July 31, 2014)

http://www.news.com.au/

MODEL Robyn Lawley has come clean about her revealing nude protest against coal mining, taking Prime Minister Tony Abbott to task over his green credentials.

The 25-year-old Lawley, currently in New York, posted an image on her Instagram account earlier this week showing her stomach, breasts and “Stop coal mining” scrawled across her stomach in red lipstick.

Robyn said the protest was in response to the Federal Government’s approval of the Carmichael Coal Mine in Queensland.
Today she has taken another swipe at Prime Minister Tony Abbott, criticising his scrapping of the carbon tax earlier this month.

“After running a campaign that bewildered the public and convinced citizens they would have to pay said tax through increased energy bills, our leaders were able to shut the (carbon price) system down,” Lawley said.

“What’s the big deal? That scheme was meant to be a powerful incentive for all businesses to cut their pollution and by investing the tax dollars in clean technology and solutions.”

The popular model also raised her concerns about the government’s support for the expansion of the massive Abbott Point Coal Terminal in north Queensland.

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