Republic of Mining

Timmins History: Dance night a treat for early prospectors – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – February 1, 2014)

February 3, 2014

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – A few years ago, the Auer family donated, to the museum, a selection of the journals of Charles and Mae Auer. The Auers were local pioneers, responsible for the Nighthawk Mine and the development that would become known as Mattagami Heights (today, home to our local Ford Dealership).

The diaries are an exceptional view of what life would have been like for the very early prospectors coming to the area. Today, I offer to you an excerpt that caught my attention because it sounds like something right out of a movie!

To set the stage, Charles Auer and his partner Black Jack Cole (what a name!) started to head for the Nighthawk River system in January 1908. Along with their dog team lead by Nell and Jack, they mushed their way on existing trails, breaking new ones when needed.

The temperatures plunged to -40 F and the snow was about three feet thick. The going was pretty rough. Eventually, they hit smoother ground and stopped for the night at Campbell’s Halfway House, outside of McDougall Chutes. They took care of the dogs and enjoyed a good hot meal.

Women in Mining in Canada: Changing the Mining Industry – by Dick DeStefano (February 3, 2014)

September 5, 2018February 3, 2014

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA). destefan@isys.ca

One of most current issues in the mining community is the growing population of professional women who are actively participating in the mining work force globally.

I recently wrote an article entitled, “What Would We Do Without Women in Mining?” describing an organization recently reconstructed and reorganized into an association called Modern Mining & Technology Sudbury. This association introduces a week-long event outlining the importance of mining to over 1000 elementary and high school students.

It has become increasingly obvious as the association grows in size and structure that professional women in mining are not only leading the way in their daily mining responsibilities but specifically the 14 women on the 21 member committee are developing educational awareness on the importance of the industry through multiple interactive activities at this event. The association is hoping to target more young women considering a profession in a growing and important sector. These 14 women brought their daily experience to the Modern Mining & Technology Sudbury event.

Mining’s $8 Billion of Private Equity Seen Reviving M&A – by Jesse Riseborough and Ruth David (Bloomberg News – February 3, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s mining assets may be the target of mergers and acquisitions as an $8 billion pool of private-equity money that has lain dormant is stirred this year by attractive valuations and predictions of resilient demand for raw materials.

Some of the biggest names in the industry are keen to buy assets at the same time as the world’s largest producers including Rio Tinto Group are shunning unwanted mines. Former chief executive officers Mick Davis of Xstrata Plc and Barrick Gold Corp.’s Aaron Regent are plotting a return to the business by buying mining projects, backed by private funds. Last week two new mining investment ventures were started, one backed by Warburg Pincus LLC, the other founded by two former JPMorgan Chase & Co. bankers.

While buyout firms have increasingly targeted mining since 2012, only about 14 percent of the almost $10 billion raised in the last two years has been deployed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Industries. That could change if they face pressure from their investors to act, Michael Rawlinson, co-head of mining and metals investment banking at Barclays Plc.

“They’ve all set up, no one’s done anything,” London-based Rawlinson said. “The sand is going through the hourglass and the money is going to get taken away if they don’t start spending.”

Jobs Report: Can mining recover? – by Adrian Lee (Maclean’s Magazine – February 2, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www2.macleans.ca/

A close look at what happened to an industry once flush with employment opportunities

For years, job seekers saw the mining industry as flush with promise. A skills shortage made for plentiful job opportunities, generous salaries and lots of chances to travel. “That’s actually what attracts them: money first and travel second, by a huge proportion,” says Scott Dunbar, the interim head of the University of British Columbia’s mining engineering department, citing frequent inter-program surveys. “The actual interest in the work involved seems not to play a big role,” he adds, laughing.

But in the last year, Canadian mining has gone from riches to, if not rags, then at least extreme restraint. In early December, Potash Corp. laid off 18 per cent of its workforce—more than 1,000 people—with about half of those cuts coming from its home province of Saskatchewan. Earlier in the year, Barrick Gold said it would lay off 30 per cent of its office staff. Other companies are joining in the cuts. At the same time, Statistics Canada data show the job market in resources has become far less favourable over the past two years.

The agency’s unemployment-to-job-vacancies ratio for the mining and energy sector—a measure of the number of unemployed people for each available job—reached 3.5 in October, the most recent month for which data are available. That’s slightly higher than the average for all industrial sectors. By contrast, during the same month in 2011, the figure was 1.1, giving mining the tightest job market of any sector at the time. It all portends an increasingly difficult-to-crack marketplace for job seekers.

Stobie Mine inquest in planning stage – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – February 1, 2014)

February 3, 2014

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

The date hasn’t been set for the coroner’s inquest into the June 8, 2011, deaths of two men at Vale’s Stobie Mine, but months of planning for the complicated procedure are under way.

The examination into the deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, who were killed when they were overcome by 350 tons of muck while working at the 3,000-foot level of the century-old mine, is expected to be lengthy and complicated.

Cheryl Mahyr, issues manager with the Office of the Chief Coroner and Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, said Friday she couldn’t make any announcement about the timing of the inquest.

Coroners’ inquests are mandatory in workplace deaths in Ontario, and are not held until after outstanding investigations and charges under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act are dealt with, including appeals.

Both United Steelworkers Local 6500 and Vale conducted exhaustive investigations into the double fatality.

A zero-Carbon Ring of Fire is needed – by Steve May (Sudbury Star – February 1, 2014)

February 3, 2014

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

Steve May is an officer of the federal and provincial Nickel Belt Greens.

Picture this: You’re riding a silent, electrically-powered railway northward into the heart of Ontario’s largest industrial project, the Ring of Fire. Occasionally, the landscape of trees and rocks is interrupted by one or two wind turbines or ground-mounted solar arrays.

As you near the end of the line, you can see that the ore processing facility looks as if it were on fire, thanks to the thousands of solar panels affixed to just about every building surface. Here, chromite and other minerals are being extracted and processed in the world’s first zero-carbon mining project, deep in the heart of the James Bay lowlands.

Impossible? Hardly. Impractical? Not at all. A zero-carbon mining project would be good for the environment and for job creation. Sustainable, net-zero development may be the only option for “getting things right” in the Ring of Fire as we go deeper into the 21st Century, thanks to Canada having taken a back-seat on climate change reduction initiatives.

Cliffs not pulling out of Ring of Fire – by Staff (Sudbury Star – February 1, 2014)

February 3, 2014

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

A Cliffs Natural Resources spokeswoman is denying a report from an online newspaper that the Cleveland-based company is pulling out of its development in the Ring of Fire.

Cliffs officials continue to talk with representatives of the Government of Ontario and First Nations communities in the area, Patricia Persico said Friday. “We are continuing with our plans as previously stated,” Persico said in an email.

In November of last year, Cliffs halted all technical work including its feasibility study, development and exploration activities for an undetermined period of time. It was a crushing blow to many in Ontario, particularly here in Sudbury where hopes were high after the former Moose Mountain Mine was chosen as the site Cliffs planned to build a $1.8-billion ferrochrome processing plant.

Persico said Cliffs remains supportive of the province’s plan to form a development corporation to finance and develop infrastructure for the Ring of Fire, and intends to participate in future discussions.

COLUMN-Critical minerals and mining reform in the U.S.: Kemp – by John Kemp (Reuters U.S. – January 31, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Jan 31 (Reuters) – Critical minerals like rare earths, lithium and tellurium are becoming ever more essential to the modern economy, yet production in the United States remains limited, leaving the country relying on imports from just a handful of countries led by China.

For many of these materials, there are few substitutes, raising obvious concerns about supply security. It wasn’t always this way. The United States was once the world’s leading producer of rare earth elements (REEs). However, mining at its Mountain Pass facility was largely suspended between 1998 and 2010 owing to environmental concerns.

China came to dominate production in the 2000s. Beijing’s decision to impose export restrictions on REEs, tungsten and molybdenum in 2011 and 2012 to reserve more of them for domestic manufacturers underscored the supply chain’s vulnerability and drew protests from the United States, the EU, Canada and Japan, as well as a complaint to the WTO.

Since then, Mountain Pass has reopened, following the construction of a new $1.55 billion processing facility by its owners Molycorp. New sources of supply are also becoming available from Mount Weld in Australia.

Greenland’s gamble on modernization [mining, oil and gas] – by Gwynne Dyer (Hamilton Spectator – February 1, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www.thespec.com/hamilton/

Will vulnerable cultures be sacrificed in the race for economic growth?

Greenland has the highest suicide rate in the world: One in five Greenlanders tries to commit suicide at some point in their lives.

Everybody in Greenland (all 56,000 of them) knows this. In fact, everybody knows quite a few people who have tried to commit suicide, and one or two who have succeeded.So is it really a good idea to subject this population to an experiment in high-speed cultural and economic change?

Greenland is not fully independent: Denmark still controls its defence and foreign affairs, and subsidizes the population at the annual rate of about $10,000 per person. But Greenlanders are one of the few aboriginal societies on the planet that is dominant (almost 90 per cent of the population) on a large territory: the world’s biggest island. And it is heading for independence.

So the debate in this soon-to-be country is about what to aim for. Do you go on trying to preserve what is left of the old Arctic hunting and fishing culture, although it’s already so damaged and discouraged that it has the highest suicide rate on the planet?

Great Barrier Reef Sediment Dump Approved For One Of World’s Most Fragile Ecosystems – by Kristen Gelineau (Huffington Post/Associated Press – January 31, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

SYDNEY (AP) — The government agency that oversees Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Friday approved a plan to dump vast swathes of sediment on the reef as part of a major coal port expansion — a decision that environmentalists say will endanger one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.

The federal government in December approved the expansion of the Abbot Point coal port in northern Queensland, which requires a massive dredging operation to make way for ships entering and exiting the port. About 3 million cubic meters (106 million cubic feet) of dredged mud will be dumped within the marine park under the plan.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt has vowed that “some of the strictest conditions in Australian history” will be in place to protect the reef from harm, including water quality measures and safeguards for the reef’s plants and animals.

But outraged conservationists say the already fragile reef will be gravely threatened by the dredging, which will occur over a 184-hectare (455-acre) area. Apart from the risk that the sediment will smother coral and seagrass, the increased shipping traffic will boost the risk of accidents, such as oil spills and collisions with delicate coral beds, environment groups argue.

The Trouble with Emerging Markets – by Nouriel Roubin (Project Syndicate.org – January 31, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www.project-syndicate.org/

Project Syndicate provides media outlets around the world with insightful commentaries by the world’s foremost economists, statesmen, and public intellectuals.

LAGOS – The financial turmoil that hit emerging-market economies last spring, following the US Federal Reserve’s “taper tantrum” over its quantitative-easing (QE) policy, has returned with a vengeance. This time, the trigger was a confluence of several events: a currency crisis in Argentina, where the authorities stopped intervening in the forex markets to prevent the loss of foreign reserves; weaker economic data from China; and persistent political uncertainty and unrest in Turkey, Ukraine, and Thailand.

This mini perfect storm in emerging markets was soon transmitted, via international investors’ risk aversion, to advanced economies’ stock markets. But the immediate trigger for these pressures should not be confused with their deeper causes: Many emerging markets are in real trouble.

The list includes India, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa – dubbed the “Fragile Five,” because all have twin fiscal and current-account deficits, falling growth rates, above-target inflation, and political uncertainty from upcoming legislative and/or presidential elections this year.

On Moroccan Hill, Villagers Make Stand Against a Mine – by Aida Alamijan (New York Times – January 23, 2014)

February 3, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/

IMIDER, Morocco — On a hilltop nearly 5,000 feet high in the Atlas Mountains here, a tiny outpost has taken shape over the past two years. The small stone buildings are decorated gaily with graffiti, and there is an open-air gallery. Many doors bear inspirational inscriptions from people like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa. On the dam of a nearby reservoir, someone has painted the face of a local activist, now in jail on what the locals regard as trumped-up charges.

It is an unlikely spot for a settlement, but it was established with a purpose: to protest a mining company’s expropriation of precious water supplies, as well as the pollution that results from the mining.

The inhabitants are drawn from the nearby municipality of Imider, 6,000 people scattered over seven villages and neighbor to the most productive silver mine in Africa. But while the area may be rich in silver, it is home to some of the poorest people in Morocco.

The people of Imider (pronounced ee-me-DER) say they have grown to resent the mine because they get nothing from it except pollutants. So two years ago, some of them climbed up the hill and cut the water supply to the mine. Since then, they have occupied the hill as they continue to fight the Imiter Mettalurgic Company and, by extension, the king of Morocco, its principal owner.

Barrick pulls off giant equity offering despite turbulent gold market – by Peter Koven (National Post – January 31, 2014)

January 31, 2014

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

The bankers behind Barrick Gold Corp.’s US$3-billion equity offering faced a tall order: sell the most shares ever issued in a Canadian bought deal; do it in a tough gold market; and do it for a company that was struggling to regain investor confidence after a series of writedowns and strategic blunders.

It was clear by last summer that Barrick, the world’s biggest gold producer, should do something about its over-levered balance sheet. Gold prices were down sharply from their highs in 2011, and analysts were warning the company could have liquidity problems if prices dropped below US$1,200 an ounce for a prolonged period.

Throughout this period, Barrick’s management was in touch with bankers from RBC Capital Markets on a potential plan to issue equity in order to retire debt. That Barrick turned to RBC was no surprise: the two firms have a longstanding relationship that dates back to the gold miner’s earliest days in the mid-1980s.

“They have done business with others. But if you look at who they have done business with over a long period of time, we’ve been privileged to have supported Barrick on a number of their milestone transactions,” said Jamie Anderson, deputy chairman of RBC Capital Markets.

New transparency recommendations to influence Canadian disclosure laws – by Simon Rees (MiningWeekly.com – January 30, 2014)

January 31, 2014

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – One of the most searing indictments levelled against the mining industry is that it has consistently short-changed governments, particularly those in developing nations.

The industry’s failure to collectively address this accusation has caused lasting and deep damage to the public’s perception of mining; it has also allowed numerous governments – again, mainly in the developing world – to accrue earnings without having to declare them. At its worst, it has had the potential to facilitate corruption.

MAKING IT MANDATORY

In response, there is now a willingness among many in the Canadian mining sector to make transparent the payments made to governments at all levels.

The US already requires mandatory disclosure by mining companies of payments to government bodies under the Dodd-Frank Act, specifically Section 1504, while the European Union’s (EU’s) legislation in this regard is ongoing. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has also helped point the way.

Kivalliq mine workforce worth its weight in gold – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq-online.ca – January 31, 2014)

January 31, 2014

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Agnico Eagle training programs growing Inuit hires

OTTAWA — With its Meadowbank mine expected to produce nearly 400,000 ounces of gold this year, and its Meliadine project contemplated to go into production for the next two years, Agnico Eagle has a good reason to invest in Nunavut.

But the Canadian-based gold producer wants that investment to produce more than just gold — the mining company wants to create a local workforce. Of the 800 people employed at Meadowbank outside of Baker Lake, 31 per cent are Inuit.

And even then, those Nunavummiut employees, who hail from nearby Kivalliq communities, haven’t come easily. The more than 200 Inuit workers at Meadowbank have been coaxed with training and support progams — efforts that Agnico Eagle and regional partners continue to build on.

“We want to be in Nunavut for a long time,” said Krystel Mayrand, who works in human resources for Agnico Eagle.