Republic of Mining

Why Colombia halted a US company’s coal exports – by John Otis (Global Post – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/

Drummond Co. helped make Colombia the world’s No. 4 coal exporter. But after alleged dirty deeds, now Bogota’s punishing the Alabama firm.

BOGOTA, Colombia — By shipping 80,000 tons of coal per day, the Alabama-based Drummond Co. has helped turned Colombia into the world’s fourth largest coal exporter — but it’s always been a dirty business.

From Drummond’s Caribbean port near the resort city of Santa Marta, cranes loaded Drummond coal onto open-air barges for delivery to ships. This process kicked up coal dust that fouled the air, water and beaches, angering local fishermen, beachgoers, hotel owners and environmental activists.

But it all came to a halt Jan. 13 after the Colombian government ordered Drummond to stop loading coal until it meets new environmental standards. Under a Colombian law that took effect Jan. 1, coal must now be loaded directly onto ships via enclosed conveyor belts, a much cleaner system.

Duluth: Hearing on PolyMet mine project draws hundreds, for and against – by John Myers (Forum News Service – January 18, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.twincities.com/

The main ballroom at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center had 1,500 chairs set up Thursday night for the public hearing on the PolyMet copper mine project, and nearly all of them were taken.

Another 100 or so people stood along the back wall for more than two hours of public testimony on the so-called Supplemental Joint Environmental Impact Statement, the environmental review document.

The hearing, the first of three, was hosted by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service — the regulatory agencies that ultimately will decide if the environmental review is officially “adequate” or not.

The audience appeared roughly split evenly, with half saying the science is sound and the project is ready to go ahead but half saying that too many questions loom unanswered.

PolyMet wants to build Minnesota’s first copper mining operation just north of Hoyt Lakes, an open pit mine and processing center that also would produce nickel, gold, platinum, palladium and other valuable minerals.

Coal mining, selenium, and the costs of toxic pollutants – by Mark Hume (Globe and Mail – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 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 — Sutton Lake, near Wilmington, North Carolina, isn’t a place many British Columbians have heard about. But it might not be long before it is cited in court documents here, because of a study that quantifies the cost of replacing fish killed by pollutants.

The 1,100-acre lake was created in 1971 on land owned by Duke Energy to cool water coming from the Sutton Steam Plant. To form the lake, the power company had to dam a creek, which the state government approved only on the condition the reservoir was developed as a public fishery.

The company agreed – and soon had created a place where the fishing was so good it became the focus of bass tournaments.

Sutton Lake, however, was also polluted with selenium leaching from coal ash stored in nearby waste pits. And that’s why Sutton Lake is relevant in Canada, where selenium pollution produced by coal, uranium and bitumen extraction is of growing concern.

Deep-sea mining could make ‘largest footprint of any single human activity on the planet’ – by Kevin Douglas Grant (Global Post – December 19, 2013)

January 20, 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/

Honolulu, Hawaii is emerging as a hub for a race to extract billions of dollars worth of minerals from the ocean floor. Modern technologies like cell phones, laptops, wind turbines and hybrid vehicles all require rare minerals, often difficult and expensive to extract from the earth.

As demand for these kinds of products surges globally and more accessible deposits of those minerals are depleted, Civil Beat reported Wednesday, countries around the world are flocking to Hawaii to explore a vast undersea area believed to contain massive mineral deposits worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The area is called the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, and organizations from countries including Japan, Great Britain, Russia, South Korea, China, France, Germany and the US are now using Honolulu as a departure point for exploration. Though the zone is just one of several in the sights of deep-sea mineral industry pioneers, researchers involved believe it holds great promise.

Their expeditions are mapping parts of the zone about 500 miles southeast of Hawaii, which covers a total estimated area of 6 million total square miles.

Jakarta mired deep in mining mess – by John McBeth (The Straits Times/Jakarta Post – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.thejakartapost.com/

Giving with one hand and taking with the other, the Indonesian government has effectively enforced a blanket ban on mineral ore exports in a bizarre, nationalist-driven decision-making process that will cost the country billions and put tens of thousands out of work.

While value-added is an understandable goal for a country blessed with so many natural resources, the implementation of the signature policy has been bedevilled by weak leadership, poor conceptualising, political grandstanding and bureaucratic ineptitude.

Miners are now threatening to head to international arbitration, with copper giants Freeport Indonesia and Newmont Nusa Tenggara facing the prospect of shutting down 65 per cent of their production – a huge chunk of the US$10 billion Indonesia makes each year from mineral exports.

The move to process all mineral ore onshore within five years was foreshadowed in the 2009 Mining Law, but only given clarity – and teeth – in a ministerial regulation issued belatedly in July 2012, which laid out the required purity levels for each individual mineral.

Anishinabek seek mining capacity – by Marlene Bilous (Anishinabek News – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://anishinabeknews.ca/

Anishinabek First Nations involved in mining issues are united in expressing their need for increased capacity at the local level in order to handle the increased paper burden caused by new mining regulations.

“Why is MNDM (Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines) not providing our five First Nations — as designated with high mining needs by MNDM — with a person for each of us?” Regional Grand Chief Peter Collins asked at October’s mining workshop for Northern Superior communities. “We have issues with the short notice period for claim staking and the very short response period for exploration plans and exploration permits.

“We are short of capacity at present and bogged down with paperwork and need at least one person for each First Nation in order to process all this extra paperwork required by the new mining regulations. We have a shortfall as there is mining exploration happening all across the territory. Furthermore, how do the other communities get on this list as many of the Northern Superior First Nations deal with mining?”

Participants at mining workshops in the four Anishinabek Nation regions all echoed the need for increased capacity at the First Nation level in order to protect Anishinabek and treaty rights and respond to the strict timelines required by Ontario’s new mining regulations.

Osisko harsh in its formal rejection of Goldcorp’s hostile bid – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 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.

MONTREAL — Osisko Mining Corp. has unveiled a lengthy and harshly worded formal rejection of Goldcorp. Inc.’s hostile $2.6-billion bid for its smaller rival.

Montreal-based Osisko’s board of directors is unanimously recommending that shareholders reject the offer Vancouver-based Goldcorp launched on Jan. 14, calling it “financially inadequate” and saying it “significantly undervalues” Osisko’s main asset, the Canadian Malartic gold mine in northwestern Quebec.

Osisko also says the timing of Goldcorp’s offer is opportunistic because it is just before Canadian Malartic enters what Osisko expects to be its most productive years.

Goldcorp is offering a “meagre 15%” premium based on the closing prices of Osisko and Goldcorp on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Jan. 10, one that is “substantially below the premiums paid in other relevant metals and mining transactions,” Osisko said in a news release Monday.

RPT-INTERVIEW-Chile’s environment lawyers say they’re just warming up – by Alexandra Ulmer and Fabian Cambero (Reuters India – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Chile’s leading environmental lawyers, who have helped stall around $30 billion in mining and energy projects, say the battle is only just beginning – and copper investments are poised to come under increasing fire this year.

In a significant shift for business-friendly Chile, empowered social groups are successfully suing massive projects over threats to glaciers, health, indigenous rights and biodiversity.

Power projects have so far fared the worse, but Santiago-based lawyers Alvaro Toro and Lorenzo Soto say many communities are now turning up the heat on mining in the world’s top copper producer.

“This year is going to be very conflictive,” Alvaro Toro, a lawyer with environmental NGO OLCA, told Reuters in his tiny office, just a block from the headquarters of world No.1 copper miner, Codelco.

“Projects are increasingly being set up in fragile places. People’s opposition is completely rational,” he said on Friday.

Early-stage explorers and prospect generators tapped for performance in 2014 – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

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

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Despite the thorny down-market the junior exploration sector has been dealing with over the past 18 months, several companies have been rewarded for their performances. The problem was, however, that the industry has not delivered a lot of performance, Sprott US Holdings chairperson Rick Rule told investors on Sunday at the 2014 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference.

He pointed to examples during this period such as Reservoir Minerals, which is developing a portfolio of metals and mineral exploration projects in Europe and Africa, whose share price had risen from C$0.26 a share, to more than C$5 apiece in three years – that is a 625% gain; and Africa Oil, which is exploring for oil in the East African Rift Basin system, which had appreciated from C$0.80 a share, to more than $9 apiece.

“That’s performance,” Rule said. He noted that during 2013, the global stock charts spelled an unmitigated disaster for the junior exploration sector, when graphs slanted from the top left corner to the bottom right. This year, the stock chart for the market as a whole was going sideways.

UPDATE 2-S.Africa minister warns on economy as mines face strike threat – by David Dolan (Reuters India – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 20 (Reuters) – South Africa’s ailing economy cannot afford more mine labour unrest, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Monday, as the platinum industry’s main trade union served notice on the world’s top three producers that it planned to strike this week.

A series of sometimes violent strikes in the factory and mining sectors constrained growth to a sluggish 2 percent in 2013, hampering efforts by President Jacob Zuma’s government to create badly needed jobs as it braces for elections this year.

The African National Congress has swept elections since overturning white minority rule in 1994, but the party Zuma now heads faces growing criticism that it has failed to lift millions of blacks out of poverty during 20 years in power.

Platinum producers Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin and Impala Platinum said they had received notice from the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) to strike in 48 hours, setting the stage for another crippling wave of unrest.

Neil Young and his fellow oil sands critics have yet to propose a single credible alternative – by Michael Den Tandt (National Post – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

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

Neil Young is probably no more, and no less, a moral coward than the next person. But he is a moral coward.

That’s because — like most of the rest of us — he declines to face the logical consequences of his beliefs. He fails to extend. The failure to extend is endemic in the broadening debate about sources of energy, their cost and follow-on effects. It reduces this debate, for the most part, to hyperbolic babble, in which combatants trade volleys like medieval theologians arguing whether angels have mass.

Does Young have the right to use his celebrity to stick it to Big Oil? Clearly he does. As Stephen Maher of Postmedia News has pointed out, this is a poet’s classic role — to act as goad, inciter and rabble-rouser. Artists are like Shakespearean court jesters. They get away with saying things no one else will or can, and they should. But let us, for a moment, talk turkey about the politics of oil, and energy, and the related moral choices that we each make.

As many have noted previously, fossil fuels are not going away, in our lifetime. The International Energy Agency predicted in its World Energy Outlook 2013 that global energy demand will grow by a third between now and 2035, with emerging economies accounting for 90% of net new demand.

Sliding loonie may ease pressure on Canadian miners – by Alisha Hiyate (Mining Markets – January 10, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.miningmarkets.ca/

For the past year, the Canadian dollar has been weakening – falling from above parity with the greenback at the beginning of 2013 to its current price of US91.5¢. The loonie has lost 2.4% of its value this week alone, and Goldman Sachs predicted last year that it would reach US88¢ within a year.

For Canadian miners with operations in Canada, there’s an upside and a downside to a weaker loonie, says Jürgen Beier, national mining leader at professional services firm Deloitte Canada.

On the upside, because all commodities are priced in U.S. dollars, they will get more Canadian dollars for every ounce of gold or pound of copper they sell, Beier says. (For example if they sell an ounce of gold for US$1,240 they will get C$1,355 per oz. at the current exchange rate)

“So there will be a revenue increase from a Canadian dollar perspective — if they report in Canadian dollars,” Beier says. At the same time, the cost of imported commodities, equipment, or anything else priced in U.S. dollars that miners need to operate is going to rise.

Call for greater State participation in mining could lead to conflicts of interest – by Leandi Kolver (MiningWeekly.com – January 17, 2014)

January 17, 2014

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Should the State play a larger role in South Africa’s mining sector, as envisaged by the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) 2014 election manifesto and the ‘State Intervention in the Minerals Sector’ (Sims) report, the establishment of an independent regulator would be essential to prevent conflicts of interest, Webber Wentzel head of Africa mining and energy projects Peter Leon said.

In his yearly January 8 statement, ANC and State President Jacob Zuma indicated that the ANC was moving ahead with measures to strengthen the State mining company and to ensure increased beneficiation for industrialisation. This statement was echoed in the ANC’s election manifesto, which stated that “the role of the State-owned mining company will be strengthened”.

Leon told Mining Weekly Online that, while the manifesto did not deal with the issue of the State-owned mining company in detail, the Sims document explained that the State would play a key role by ensuring the compulsory beneficiation of “strategic” minerals at “competitive” and “affordable” prices, and that a more direct role would be played by the State mining company through the “development of strategic minerals” and “supporting, where appropriate, vertically integrated value chains that strengthen strategic industries”.

Alberta-shot Discovery Channel miniseries, Klondike, mixes history and melodrama – by Eric Volmers (Calgary Herald – January 16, 2014)

April 5, 2015January 17, 2014

http://www.calgaryherald.com/index.html

Given its rugged nature, it’s not surprising that much of the chatter around the Discovery Channel’s Klondike has dealt with the more physical aspects involved in filming the six-hour miniseries last year in Alberta.

Actors climbed mountains, plunged into rivers, dodged (fake) avalanches, fought and shot each other and generally did their best to look gaunt, desperate and dishevelled when sloshing in the muck of a recreated Dawson City of the 1890s.

But star Richard Madden insists there was a more scholarly side to the shoot. In fact, to hear the 27-year-old Scottish actor talk about it, the set could become positively nerdy when it came to comparing notes on their characters.

Mining in Indonesia: Smeltdown (The Economist – January 18, 2014)

January 17, 2014

http://www.economist.com/

The government risks an export slump to boost the metals-processing industry

JAKARTA – INDONESIA’S government concedes that it will cause short-term damage; but on January 12th it went ahead and banned exports of mineral ores, at last implementing a law passed in 2009. Officials say that forcing mining firms to export only processed minerals will attract investment in smelters and refineries. After a year or so this will start to add value to the country’s exports, they say. But it is quite a gamble.

Indonesia has few smelters, and earns $5 billion a year by exporting unprocessed minerals such as copper concentrate, nickel ores and bauxite. The mining ministry had admitted that an outright ban on ore shipments would cut exports by $4 billion this year and $2.5 billion next. With the country’s current-account deficit last year hitting 3.5% of GDP, its worst since 1986, and its currency falling steeply, this is a bad time to be forgoing foreign earnings.

This may explain why the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, relaxed the moratorium at the last moment to let big copper producers keep exporting concentrate. (They will, however, have to pay stiff export taxes, rising from 25% this year to 60% in 2016.)