Illegal mining getting out of control – Shabangu – by Leandi Kolver (MiningWeekly.com – February 21, 2014)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Illegal mining in South Africa was getting out of control with about 6 000 people estimated to be involved in the practice of illegal underground mining and another 8 000 in illegal surface mining, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Friday.

She pointed out that it was estimated that, in 2011, illegal mining subtracted about R6-billion from the country’s fiscus, adding that as the practice grew this figure would also grow and, therefore, it was something that had to be dealt with.

Shabangu on Friday met with local stakeholders, aiming to establish a local Ekurhuleni illegal mining forum, including unions, mining industry players, the Metro Police, the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Department of Home Affairs.

After the meeting, she told media that while there was a Gauteng provincial forum on illegal mining, it was “not really moving in a way that helps us to take this process [forward] and deal with the matter decisively” and, therefore, the decision to set up the Ekurhuleni forum was made.

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Dover oil sands deal with Fort McKay band raises the bar for future projects – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – February 25, 2014)

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

In an agreement worked out after almost two years of negotiations, Alberta’s Fort McKay band didn’t get the buffer zone it was seeking to protect an area of great aboriginal significance.

What it got is a commitment it believes will achieve the same outcome — plus a broader lesson for the oil sands industry: Invest the time to work with First Nations on energy projects.

“If they come with the position that this is what we want, it’s going to be our way, and we are going to get all the approvals we need … I think that is the wrong approach,” Alvaro Pinto, chief negotiator for the Alberta community, said in an interview. “The more proactive you are in working with First Nations, the more creative you are in finding solutions together. That is what is necessary.”

The Fort McKay community, Brion Energy Corp., and Athabasca Oil Corp. reached an agreement late Friday to develop the Dover oil sands project after a meeting in the community near Fort McMurray between Fort McKay chief Jim Boucher; Zhiming Li, president and CEO of Brion, majority owned by PetroChina; and Sveinung Svarte, CEO of Athabasca.

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Is Hudak’s ‘million jobs’ plan the economic shock Ontario needs? – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – February 23, 2014)

http://www.ottawasun.com/home

TORONTO – A million jobs: Is it myth or miracle. That’s the question PC leader Tim Hudak was asked as he introduced his “Million Jobs Act” in the legislature last week.

I posed that question to economists.The province’s manufacturing sector is dying. We’ve lost 300,000 jobs over the last 10 years. Big companies such as Heinz and Kelloggs are pulling out daily. University of Calgary Professor Jack Mintz said he’s not sure public policy alone will create a million jobs. Other factors, such as the world economy, play a big part.

Mintz figures this province needs a kick start.“I think Ontario needs a shock in the positive sense. It’s dragging. It needs a serious look at the restructured role it’s going to have,” he said. “I think he (Hudak) has the right focus, which is to say,’ How can we get more economic growth and more jobs?’

“Whether he can create a million jobs or not is another story,” he added. Hudak’s plan to get energy costs under control makes sense, Mintz said. “I think the energy file is in a mess in Ontario and needs to be fixed. It’s going in the wrong direction right now and it’s going to make Ontario very uncompetitive,” he said.

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MINT: The Next Economic Giants – by Jim O’Neill (BBC Radio 4 – January 2014)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Economist Jim O’Neill was the first to spot the huge potential of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China, and predict how the world would change. In this landmark series, Jim travels to four countries which could one day stand alongside them and join the world’s economic elite. Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey – MINT – could become the new name on people’s lips, and further overturn the old world order.

For the four-part radio espisodes, click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pn2h6/episodes/guide

Mexico

Mexico’s hope of becoming the workshop of North America was shattered by China’s domination of cheap exports, but recently, the Mexican dream is in sight again. As Beijing opts for “quality not quantity” of growth, companies are returning, drawn by competitive labour and proximity to the US market. In the first part of a landmark series, the economist Jim O’Neill travels across Mexico to investigate. He discovers that its ambitions now go far beyond cheap manufacturing. But can Mexico’s youthful, reforming government overcome the challenges of widespread poverty, crime and a huge number of people living outside the formal economy?

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Jim O’Neill interview: Why the Mints come after the Brics – by Sophie McBain (NewStatesman – January 23, 2914)

http://www.newstatesman.com/

The economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the term “Bric countries” (referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China), now says that the term is now tired, and argues that immigration should be widely accepted as a good thing.

Thirteen years ago, Jim O’Neill, a chief economist at Goldman Sachs, coined the term “Brics” to describe the four countries he predicted would be among the next global economic giants: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The acronym caught on, to an extent that O’Neill describes as “flattering” – but he also feels “irritated” by having to defend his theory.

“Someone has just written a book called Broken Brics, and I’m just like, yawn,” he says, collapsing into his seat with feigned exhaustion. “If I dreamt it up again today, I’d probably just call it ‘C’,” he adds, perking up. “China’s one and a half times bigger than the rest of them put together.”

But O’Neill, now 56, is moving on, from both banking and the Brics. He left his role as chairman of Goldman Sachs in April 2013 after 18 years of working at the investment bank. Deciding that he couldn’t better his former role, he resolved to do something different. I’m meeting him at a private members’ club in central London to discuss his newest acronym, Mint, and the accompanying Radio 4 series.

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BRICs Creator O’Neill Wowed by New Lula’s Success: Mexico Credit – by Nacha Cattan (Bloomberg News – December 18, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Jim O’Neill has been tracking economic reform initiatives in countries across the world during his 33-year career on Wall Street. Only a few of them, he said, rank higher than what Mexico achieved this year.

“I can’t think of many other countries that have had a period of such deep reforms,” said O’Neill, who coined the term BRICs while serving as a top Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist in 2001, correctly predicting a surge in growth for Brazil, Russia, India and China. “Markets are only just really starting to give Mexico any credibility now that the energy reform is going through.”

President Enrique Pena Nieto shepherded through at least 10 constitutional amendments in his first year in office, including measures to open Mexico’s oil industry to private investment for the first time in 75 years. He is slated to enact as soon as this week the new drilling rules, which are aimed at luring oil majors from Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) to Chevron Corp. (CVX), after a majority of states ratified the changes adopted by the national congress.

O’Neill estimates the reforms will boost Mexico’s long-term economic growth to 5 percent from the current 3 percent, helping trigger a bond rally that will top gains in other emerging markets next year. Barclays Plc predicts the reforms will spark investor demand for bonds in coming weeks, with yields on longer-term securities falling about 0.25 percentage point by year-end.

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Two [resource] roads too late? – by Russel Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – February/March 2014)

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

Sorry, but I find it hard to get excited by the recent news that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has broken ceremonial ground on a new all-weather highway from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk.

As much as I favour any infrastructure work the Feds are willing to pay for, I have to question why a 140-km gravel highway (that’s been on the books since the Diefenbaker years in the 1960s) now gets a push and will still be on the books until it’s scheduled to be completed in 2018?

Sure, the PMO’s office says, “The link that hooks up to the Dempster Highway running through the Yukon is expected to deliver many economic benefits and save northerners hundreds of dollars a year in shipping costs.”

BUT, and that’s a big ‘but,’ is saving northerners hundreds of dollars worth it because I can think of a number of other highway projects that would not only save money but moreover, help make it?

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Mechanized mining could revive output in South Africa – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – February 24, 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.

WESTONARIA, SOUTH AFRICA — With a great clanking and an occasional dripping of water, the dimly lit elevator cage gathers speed and then plunges 2.4 kilometres below the earth’s surface in an ear-popping four minutes.

It’s one of the biggest and fastest vertical drops in the world, and it opens up an era of mechanized mining that could be the saviour of South Africa’s struggling gold and platinum sectors.

South Deep, once the property of Barrick Gold Corp. and now owned by Gold Fields Ltd., has been the future of South African mining for a long time – perhaps too long, according to analysts who question its persistent delays.

With more than $4-billion (U.S.) invested in it so far, South Deep boasts a huge reserve of 40 million ounces that could keep it in operation for 60 years or more, with its drills blasting up to three kilometres underground. It has been long viewed as the last great gold mine in South Africa, and potentially one of the lowest-cost producers in the world.

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Martu Rangers Help Bring Australia’s Desert to Life for Newmont – by Joe Kirschke (Engineering and Mining Journal – February 20, 2014)

http://www.e-mj.com/

In the immense expanse of the Australian Central Western Desert that engulfs Newmont Mining Corp.’s Jundee complex in the Yandal goldfield 1,100 km northeast of Perth, water, food and people are often equally scarce.

In a good year, the dry, unicolor land will absorb 200 milliliters of rainfall. The native Martu people, however, have long since adapted: with one of the world’s oldest living cultures—dating back 40,000 years—the aboriginals are exceptional at spotting, tracking and catching elusive goanna lizards and bush turkeys—both on foot and by setting fires.

Such skills have not gone unnoticed. Through Australia’s Central Desert Native Title Services (CDNTS), Newmont is now tapping it for a landmark Martu Ranger land management program. It’s an endeavor exemplifying mining-sector Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at its best: While generating indigenous employment, the initiative provides for the environment alongside a cultural awareness eagerly promoted by a government.

In wake of a 2011 pilot program, a fee-for-service compliance contract has since evolved into a large-scale biodiversity restoration project that is drawing new partner interest, while increasing Martu employment levels three-fold.

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UPDATE 2-Indonesia to ease export tax, 1st rollback of mining rules – by Wilda Asmarini and Yayat Supriatna (Reuters India – February 24, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Indonesia will ease a controversial tax on mineral concentrate exports for firms that build smelters in the country, in the first rollback of new rules that have caused its mining industry to grind to a halt.

The move is a potential victory for U.S. mining giants Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining Corp . A senior government official said Freeport would resume exports of copper concentrate in the “near future”.

Around $500 million a month in ore and concentrate exports have stopped since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in January imposed mining rules, which included the progressive tax and a mineral ore export ban, to force companies to build smelters and process raw materials in Indonesia.

“The export tax can be changed. For those who have seriously committed to building smelters, we will ease it,” said Sukhyar, director general of coal and minerals for the mines ministry. “The export tax can be lowered or maybe eliminated to zero percent.”

By contrast, Indonesian government officials have said over the last few weeks that Jakarta would not back down from the export tax or any of the mining regulations passed last month.

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Don’t believe the China hype: Time to engage with Beijing – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – February 24, 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.

When Xi Jinping made his first trip abroad as China’s President last year, he chose Africa as his destination. His pledge to aid the continent’s development with “no political strings attached” was seen by many in the West as another sign of China’s willingness to look past corruption, rights abuses and environmental degradation in its quest to secure natural resources.

Others saw not the win-win relationship Mr. Xi described on his trip but a form of neo-colonialism. “China takes from us primary goods and sells us manufactured ones,” Nigerian Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi wrote in the Financial Times. “China is a major contributor to the deindustrialization of Africa and thus African underdevelopment.”

Last week, Mr. Sanusi was ousted by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan after alleging that billions of dollars in oil revenue owed to the government were missing. His dismissal fuelled allegations of corruption at the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

Mr. Sanusi’s exit has also contributed to unease that China, whose investments in Nigeria are growing, is buying the allegiance of shady regimes by promising unconditional political and financial support in exchange for raw resources.

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Canada, U.S., Mexico are now fierce energy rivals – by Barrie McKenna (Globe and Mail – February 24, 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 — The head of Mexico’s state-owned oil company envisions a NAFTA-style energy partnership with Canada and the United States.

Pemex chief executive officer Emilio Lozoya Austin isn’t the first person to muse about greater continental energy integration through such policies as resource pooling and harmonized regulations. But it’s a new energy world in 2014, two decades after the landmark North American free-trade agreement was struck.

The three countries are now fierce rivals in a North American energy landscape that has been dramatically reshaped by imminent U.S. energy self-sufficiency. Parochialism risks trumping integration, and common ground is increasingly hard to find.

There were troubling signs as Prime Minister Stephen Harper met his fellow NAFTA leaders in Mexico last week that the “three amigos” are drifting farther apart, and the schism is particularly apparent in energy.

In their post-summit statement, the leaders committed to a meeting of energy ministers later this year to vaguely discuss “opportunities to promote common strategies” in areas such as trade, infrastructure and unconventional energy.

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BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie: Economy is sound – by Peter Ker (The Age – February 24, 2014)

http://www.theage.com.au/

BHP Billiton boss Andrew Mackenzie says he is optimistic about Australia’s economic prospects, despite the departure of the car makers and last week’s closure of the Alcoa smelter at Point Henry.

But Mr Mackenzie told Channel Nine’s Financial Review Sunday program the swath of job losses in manufacturing highlighted the importance of the nation uniting behind a single productivity agenda.

Mr Mackenzie has been particularly upbeat about the future of the Australian economy since taking over as chief executive in May, and his mantra that Australia still has ”everything to play for” has often been at odds with the gloomy prognoses of federal governments.

Mr Mackenzie has regularly urged Australia to help itself by reforming industrial relations, taxes and its productivity performance, and said the high-profile corporate closures were a reminder of that.

”To be pro-Australia for a moment I wish they hadn’t happened … but I have a global perspective, I see what happens elsewhere in the world and I still think Australia has an awful lot going for it,” he said.

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For embattled Bre-X lawyer Joe Groia, the trial isn’t over – by Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – February 15, 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.

TORONTO — Joe Groia, perhaps the best-known securities lawyer on Bay Street, enjoys a maverick reputation he owes largely to his biggest case: His successful defence of John Felderhof, the geologist at the centre of the Bre-X gold fraud that rocked Bay Street in the 1990s.

The Bre-X affair has long since faded into history – but not for Mr. Groia. The case that defined his career remains very much a present-day preoccupation.

Wearing a jacket and tie with faded jeans and gesticulating over a half-plate of orecchiette at Oro – a downtown Toronto Italian restaurant where he had a party after his wedding 25 years ago – he tells of how his link to the Bre-X saga began, recalling a promise he made to Mr. Felderhof that things would turn out all right.

Back in 1997, the geologist was under a cloud of suspicion after faked gold-drilling results from Indonesia caused stock in his company, Bre-X Minerals Ltd., to crater, costing investors billions. The Ontario Securities Commission, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the RCMP and the FBI were all on the case.

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Mining for Gold at Minus 45 Celsius – by Alister MacDonald and John W. Miller (Wall Street Journal – February 23, 2014)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Meadowbank Project Is One Test of Whether Arctic’s Resources Are Within Reach

MEADOWBANK GOLD MINE, Nunavut—Gold miner Alain Belanger contends with 75 mile an hour winds, winter temperatures so cold they have cracked the steel on his 287-ton excavator and white-out blizzards that can halt mining for days.

This open-pit mine west of Canada’s Hudson Bay has had such steep construction and operating costs—flying workers in and out, stocking a year’s worth of food, employee turnover and battling snow drifts that can reach eight feet—that the project is unlikely to break even over the long haul, Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. AEM.T +0.37% executives now concede.

As the world warms, miners dream of unlocking trillions of dollars in diamonds, gold, nickel and other metals in the Arctic, a treeless cap that spans northern parts of Canada, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavian countries. So far, it has proved a quixotic quest for all but a few tenacious miners like Agnico.

“We know there is extreme wealth in the Arctic,” said Agnico’s Chief Executive Sean Boyd in an interview. “The reality, though, is you have to have a lot going for you to get it out the ground.”

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