Twitter

Ring of Fire – Good timing, good politics (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial – April 29, 2014)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

THE timing of Monday’s provincial offer of $1 billion to access the Ring of Fire just three days before the budget is entirely political, of course.

It could have come months ago. Instead it is designed for maximum leverage against opposition parties who will be accused by the Liberals of blocking Northern economic development if they vote against Thursday’s budget.

The Liberals will say they’ve been trying to get Ottawa to agree to partner in building an essential transportation corridor into the mineral-rich region around James Bay.

It took regional cabinet ministers Michael Gravelle for Ontario and Ottawa’s Greg Rickford months to agree to a meeting and not much came out of it except to agree to the obvious — that this is a remarkable economic opportunity that must not be passed up.

Here, too, Ontario’s political initiative Monday is timely, coinciding with the resumption of Parliament where the governing Conservatives remain intent on jobs and prosperity that are in relatively short supply in Northern Ontario. The message is clear: if you’re serious, match our offer.

Read more

UPDATE 2-S.Africa’s AMCU says striking miners reject platinum wage offer – by Zandi Shabalala (Reuters India – April 29, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

MARIKANA, South Africa, April 29 (Reuters) – Members of South Africa’s striking mining union AMCU have rejected the latest wage offer from the world’s top three platinum producers, its president said on Tuesday, extending a crippling 14-week stoppage.

“The members have rejected the offer from the employer,” Joseph Mathunjwa told reporters after addressing a rally of workers near Lonmin’s Marikana mine.

The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) held similar rallies in recent days at Anglo American Platinum and Impala Platinum. It now plans to meet this week with the companies to inform them in person of the rejection, Mathunjwa said.

Marathon wage talks collapsed last week, dashing hopes for an imminent end to South Africa’s longest and most costly mining strike, which has hit 40 percent of global platinum production and threatens growth in Africa’s most advanced economy.

The companies say they are taking their offer directly to the workers via cellphone text messages and radio and newspaper spots in a bid to circumvent AMCU’s leadership, setting the stage for a grinding showdown between capital and labour.

Read more

New calls for Canadian mining ombudsman so far unanswered – by Marion Warnica (CBC News Edmonton – April 28, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/edmonton/

Federal mining watchdog spot empty for seven months

A group of South American advocates wants Canada to appoint an ombudsman to regulate its mining activities outside its borders.

The group says the federal government, which has yet to release the results of its long-awaited review into its foreign mining policies, should be more involved in the monitoring and management of its foreign operations.

“A great deal of economic development that Canada enjoys, a lot of that results in human rights violations that we cannot tolerate,” said Archbishop Pedro Barreto, the president of the Solidarity and Justice Department in the Latin American Episcopal Council based in Huancayo, Peru.

Barreto spoke to CBC News as part of a larger investigation into water stress in Peru. He has joined a growing number of advocates and NGOs who want Canada to appoint a legislated mining ombudsman to oversee Canadian extraction activities around the world.

“The government of Canada is decisively supporting mining enterprises, without caring for lives or their social responsibility – and we are severely concerned about this,” said Barreto. Critics await improvements to failed complaints process

Read more

Barrick-Newmont merger collapses into toxic war of words – by Peter Koven (National Post – April 29, 2014)

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

TORONTO — A much-anticipated merger between Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp. has collapsed into a toxic public feud between leaders of the two firms that simply could not get along.

Talks between the two companies are finished, and sources said there is no chance they will start again anytime soon. That is bad news for shareholders, who stood to benefit if the miners combined their highly complementary Nevada operations.

It would have been the biggest deal in the history of the gold mining sector. Its failure demonstrates that clashing personalities can destroy a transaction that seemingly makes sense in every other way.

The two firms have tried to merge numerous times over the years, but personality clashes got in the way each time. This time was no different, though this was as close as they ever got to a deal. Newmont initiated the latest round of negotiations.

“They’re like two kids in the sandbox,” said John Ing, president and gold analyst at Maison Placements Canada. “The logic of the merger is there, but when you get down to board seats and personalities, it’s a different kettle of fish.”

Read more

Province pledges $1 billion to Ring of Fire – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – April 29, 2014)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

But funding only available if Ottawa matches it.

The provincial government says it’s prepared to pump up to $1 billion into all-season access to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire deposit in Northern Ontario — provided Ottawa matches the funding.

Calling the $60 billion site Canada’s next great mining development, Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle announced Monday that the funding would go toward a much-needed transportation and power corridor to the remote site located in the James Bay lowlands.

“The Ring of Fire represents one of the most significant mineral regions in the province, and includes the largest deposit of chromite ever discovered in North America,” said Gravelle. He added that mine development will create thousands of jobs for generations to come and boost Northern Ontario’s struggling economy.

While a Toronto-based company poised to open a nickel mine in the Ring called the potential financing a “vital milestone” to development, critics called it part of the Liberal government’s pre-election spending spree that comes just days before the Ontario budget is announced.

Read more

COMMENT: Newmont, Barrick talks dead -by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – April 28, 2014)

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Even when a merger is no longer on the horizon, the two sides still disagree. Such is the case as Toronto’s Barrick Gold issued a terse press release this morning to say that talks of a merger with Newmont Mining of Denver have been terminated at Newmont’s request.

That might have been the end of it, but Newmont released the text of an April 25, 2014, letter from chairman Vincent A. Calarco to Barrick co-chair John L. Thornton. Newmont said it had been hopeful that the two companies could merge and realize their combined strengths. However, over recent weeks the talks had become adversarial rather than oriented toward a mutually beneficial partnership.

“Our board,” wrote Calarco, “has met a number of times since we were twice told definitively last Thursday by your co-chairman that the process in which we had been engaged to find a basis to merge our two companies was ‘dead’. As you would expect, that unilateral declaration made us question whether we actually shared the vision and values that are necessary to forge a successful new company.”

Unsaid, but understood, is that Newmont is pointing the finger at Thornton.

Read more

Nearly 150-Year-Old [U.S.] Federal Mining Law Could Need Update (Jefferson Public Radio – April 28, 2014)

http://ijpr.org/

The federal legislation that regulates mining for copper, zinc, gold and many other minerals was originally signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. In ways, the law reflects a 19th century view of natural resources: limitless and there for the taking.

Now, a legacy of pollution at tens of thousands of abandoned mines across the West is prompting an Oregon congressman to head a new effort to revise the General Mining Act of 1872.

Chris Cora of the Environmental Protection Agency stands on what used to be a mountaintop in the Umpqua River Basin of Southern Oregon. Now, it’s essentially a landfill “filled with waste rock and tailings,” Cora said. “There’s actually zinc ore in here. Well, it’s concentrated zinc, which is really bad for the environment,” he said.

The rubble in the area is what’s left after a mining operator blasted off the top of the mountain to get to deposits of copper and zinc. The company piled up the leftovers, covered them with plastic liner and soil, then abandoned the site. The liner soon failed.

Now, rainwater percolates down through the mining waste, picking up a toxic load of heavy metals and acid. Cora said that’s made the nearby creek uninhabitable for the region’s threatened coho salmon and other fish.

Read more

UPDATE 1-Eramet sees another loss in H1 despite nickel recovery – by Andrew Callus and Gus Trompiz (Reuters India – April 29, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

PARIS, April 29 (Reuters) – French mining and metals group Eramet said on Tuesday it expected to make another operating loss in the first half of 2014 despite a recovery in nickel prices driven by an Indonesian ban on unprocessed mineral exports.

The group, whose nickel operations are based in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, has been pinning its hopes on Indonesia’s export embargo to curb global oversupply and bolster prices that sank to a four-year low in 2013.

Nickel prices had recovered significantly since March but still remained down 15 percent on year at “an abnormally low average level” of $6.64 a pound, it said.

“Eramet group turnover should pick up in Q2 2014, compared with Q1 2014,” it said in a first-quarter sales statement.  “Nonetheless, in view of the relative movement in nickel and manganese prices, current operating income for first-half 2014 should be approximately the same as in second-half 2013,” it said.

Eramet posted a current operating loss of 45 million euros for 2013, including losses in each half. Its nickel branch suffered a full-year loss of 222 million euros and the poor market conditions led Eramet to postpone its flagship nickel mining project in Indonesia.

Read more

Industry leaders reflect on evolution of SA’s mining industry over last two decades – by Jade Davenport (MiningWeekly.com – April 25, 2014)

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

The mining industry has, from a historical perspective, played an inherently complex and contradictory role within South Africa’s sociopolitical economy. While the industry has, for more than a century, been the main driver of phenomenal economic growth and industrialisation, it was also partly responsible for institutionalising racial discrimination and the exploitation of cheap labour.

Therefore, it stands to reason that, of all South Africa’s pillar industries, the mining sector has had the longest path to walk in addressing its historical legacy and adapting itself to operate under a radically different dispensation.

On the eve of South Africa’s twentieth anniversary, commemorating the advent of a nonracial democracy, there is little question that the character of the mining industry has radically changed from what it was in the early 1990s.

“The mining industry has experienced an accelerated rate of transformation post-1994 in comparison to several other key industries,” Chamber of Mines president Mike Teke tells Mining Weekly.

“I believe that transformation has happened in a voluntary fashion, with the recognition by the industry itself that we are in a new democratic South Africa and we need to transform positively.”

Read more

The meaning of Peter Munk – by Peter C. Newman (MACLEAN’S Magazine – April 28, 2014)

http://www.macleans.ca/

As the notorious magnate leaves Barrick Gold, Peter C. Newman contemplates his rise, fall, and what’s next

With Peter Munk about to abandon his chairmanship of the Barrick mining empire at next week’s annual meeting in Toronto, it seems only appropriate to dwell on his fall from grace. From being the invincible king of international gold mining, the pride of Canada’s business tycoonery, the talented Mr. Munk finds himself accused of having moved too far, too fast, at too high a cost—¬leaving his company stuck with a tricky salvage operation.

But that is not the guts of the story, not the sum total of this remarkable mega-entrepreneur’s long journey from his aristocratic Hungarian background to at least three excursions into commercial glory. That sequence of initiatives climaxed in his successful run as the world’s champion gold magnate, who until the past three years could do no wrong. The dramatic reversal of his standing on Bay Street brought into play British explorer George Leigh Mallory’s 1924 comment about Mount Everest. When asked why he risked his life climbing the mountain, he famously replied: “Because it’s there.” Sixty-four years later, on Sept. 29, 1988, when Stacy Allison became the first American woman to conquer the great peak, was asked the same question, she smiled and shot back: “Cause I’m here!”

That’s the essence of Peter Munk, explained in three words: ¬the optimistic, fast-action guy, convinced that everything he touched would turn to gold. For most of the past five decades that was pretty well what happened. His company was flying high and he dominated its annual shareholders’ meetings, rhetorically armed to meet any challenge. It was at these public performances that he shifted into high gear, using messianic hand gestures and commanding body language. Inevitably, he won over his audiences.

Read more

Red dirt in Red Square: Mining World Russia – by Cole Latimer (Australian Mining – April 28, 2014)

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

As the Mining World Russia exhibition wraps up, Australian companies are looking to head home and count their successes at the show, and in the country. Speaking to a number of Australian companies which participated in the Austmine and Austrade developed trade mission and the exhibition as well, they said it was a positive experience and has helped them get a foot in the door of one of the largest mining markets in the world.

The trade mission was carried out as a political storm grew in the background, however this didn’t work to deter miners, who were focusing on the longer term goals of taking Australian experience and technology into new and willing markets.

But why Russia? According to Palaris’ Joe Carr “Russian miners are currently seeing a requirement for technical expertise that they just don’t have here,” which includes high end products and experience that many Australian mining and METS companies have.

Bradken added that “there is a real desire for better technology and equipment in the country,” with Gekko’s Nigel Grigg explaining that previously Russia operated with smaller equipment, but lots of it, so now they are looking to larger, single pieces of machinery or technology”.

Read more

Vale considers action after iron ore rights revoked – by Tom Burgis (Financial Times – April 27, 2014)

http://www.ft.com/home/us

Vale is weighing legal action after Guinea formally cancelled multi-billion-dollar iron ore rights that the Brazilian mining group held jointly with Israeli tycoon Beny Steinmetz’s family conglomerate following a two-year corruption inquiry.

The revocation of the rights came two weeks after a government inquiry in the west African nation concluded that BSG Resources, the mining arm of Mr Steinmetz’s business empire, won them through a bribery scheme before agreeing to sell a majority stake in its Guinean assets to Vale for $2.5bn in 2010.

Vale, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, said on Friday that it was “actively considering its legal rights and options”. A spokesperson for the group declined to elaborate on its plans on Sunday.

BSGR denies wrongdoing and says it is the victim of a plot to seize its assets. The Guernsey-registered company has said it will “prove the allegations raised in Guinea’s rigged and illegitimate process are false” and has threatened to take Guinea to international arbitration. BSGR declined to comment on Vale’s statement.

Read more

Challenge is on [Northern Ontario issues] (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – April 28, 2014)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

THERE was no way Kathleen Wynne was going to let herself get put into a situation of having to respond to a challenge to debate other party leaders in Northern Ontario. Dalton McGuinty did that and came off looking bad when he refused an invitation that Tory Tim Hudak and New Democrat Andrea Horwath accepted. They spent much of their time in a 2011 face-off in Thunder Bay hammering the then-premier for being a no-show. Northerners do not take kindly to snubs — real or perceived — from politicians from southern Ontario.

With more and more people sensing an election when Wynne’s government presents a budget May 1, the premier has been in full campaign mode. At least once a week for some time now her government has issued policy proposals across the political spectrum.

Hudak and Horwath insist these are not good ideas though neither of them has yet come up with a firm policy framework of any kind. Wynne spoke to an audience of over 200 Northern mayors, councillors, and business leaders at the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association’s annual conference in Fort Frances late last week and ended with a bang.

If the other parties force an election by voting down the budget, Wynne proposes they come north and debate Northern issues in the campaign that follows.

Read more

Sudburians mourn with mix of anger, sadness – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – April 29, 2014)

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

The province’s ongoing mining review was a hot topic at Day of Mourning ceremonies at Laurentian University on Monday.

United Steelworkers International president – and Greater Sudbury native – Leo Gerard said it was “a damn shame” that Vale and GlencoreXstrata officials did not appear before the review committee when it held hearings in the Nickel Capital earlier this year.

The committee is looking as way to make mining safer in Ontario. “Enough is enough is enough,” said Gerard, his voice rising before about 350 people in the Fraser Auditorium. “Appear before the inquiry and make your case. If you don’t have a case, admit it.

“Far too many workers are getting killed. Far too many workers are afraid of opening their mouth … If you ignore health and safety conditions, if you can’t manage, if you send someone into a dangerous circumstance, you should be held responsible.”
Gerard was one of more than half a dozen speakers at the 30th-annual ceremonies that are intended to honour the memories of workers killed on the job, or who died from workplace injuries or disease. The day is now marked in more than 80 countries.

Read more

‘I miss you more than you know’ : Sudbury son – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 29, 2014)

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

The grown son of a man killed with three others at Inco’s Levack Mine on April 14, 1987, received a standing ovation and the respect of 400 people for his courage in baring his emotions on the anniversary of his father’s death.

Luc St. Amour was 13 and his brother, Richard, was 11 when their father, Germain “Butch” St. Amour, died on the job along with Rene Bedard, Wilbrod Gauvin and Donald Knight.

Luc, now 40 and a father himself, wrote a letter to his father April 13 this year, in which he poured out his heart. A relative associated with United Steelworkers read the letter online and asked Luc to read it at this year’s Day of Mourning service, his mother, Suzanne Stead, said last week.

“I sit here as half boy, half man. I think of how my last words to you were out of anger,” read St. Amour. “I wish I could have that moment back. I know you loved me. I wonder if your last thoughts were of mom, Richard and I.

“I sit here thinking … as a little boy, how I missed out on lessons you wanted to teach me. I sit here as a man still missing you, trying to remember your voice, your smell, your laugh, but I can’t.

Read more