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Eggs Benny with the man who led the counter-revolution at Rio Tinto [Sam Walsh] – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2013)

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.

LONDON — Sam Walsh is a curious mix of plain-spoken modesty and polished style. With his cherubic face and easy smile, the Australian chief executive officer of Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, would make the perfect Santa Claus. He is addicted to Coca-Cola, loves to tell stories and has a dotty obsession with milk jugs, the little porcelain ones you find on tea or coffee trays.

In China, he once paid for an entire dinner set just so he could nab the one jug that went with it. “I pulled the milk jug out and stuck it in my pocket,” he says, grinning. “The store owner went mad because she was left with a dinner set without a jug.”

Yet he is also addicted to fine suits – Canali is his brand – collects modern art and, along with his wife Leanne, is a regular at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

His easy-going manner is deceiving; his job is to fix the damage inflicted on the company by an epic spending spree that was highlighted by the $38-billion (U.S.) purchase in 2007 of Montreal’s Alcan, probably the biggest, stupidest resources deal of the last decade. He is doing it with the steely efficiency of the great white sharks hunting in the waters off his home town of Perth, Western Australia.

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First Nation seeks equal face-time to lobby feds on New Prosperity – by Derrick Penner (Vancouver Sun – December 13, 2013)

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

With B.C. Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett in Ottawa lobbying in favour of Taseko Mines Ltd.’s New Prosperity mine proposal in the province’s Interior, the First Nation affected by the project is seeking equal time with federal ministers to make their case as to why the mine shouldn’t be built.

And the Tsihlqot’in National Government warned federal decision makers that it will oppose any decision approving the project in court, which could leave the Crown on the hook for millions of dollars in compensation to Taseko if an approval is rejected.

Chief Joe Alphonse, Tribal Chair for the Tsihlqot’in National Government, said “it is a disgrace” for Bennett to be lobbying for the mine project despite two versions of Taseko’s proposal both receiving federal environmental assessment reviews that concluded the project would pose significant, irreversible risks to the environment.

Bennett went to Ottawa for meetings with four federal ministers and a dozen B.C. MPs to express his confidence in Taseko’s ability to build the mine without serious damage to the environment and deliver the message that the project is important for the economic development of the Cariboo region.

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Time to stop relying on others doing well – by Greg Van Moorsel (London Free Press – December 12, 2013)

http://www.lfpress.com/

Hewers of wood and drawers of water – for years, that’s been the rap against Canada’s economy: A one-trick pony, too hooked on natural resources.

For once, we can be thankful for all that oil, base metals, petro-chemicals and potash. As economy watchers close the books on 2013 and crystal-ball next year, it’s clear a stoked resources sector has done much of the heavy lifting to keep Canada out of the worst of the global muck since the economic meltdown of 2008.

Underlining the point, the Conference Board of Canada this week reported Alberta has been our largest contributor to economic growth for the last three years, outpacing the much larger economies of Central Canada. Expect the same in 2014.

Resources, however, are notoriously cyclical, and already we’re seeing signs of a downside including huge layoffs at fertilizer giant Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan and a loonie trading near a three-year low as world demand for our oil and other riches falls. The paradox – in a country that’s also relied on the consumer and government to help us ride out the recession – is that higher growth, in the mid 2% range, is forecast next year.

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Is Ontario Getting a Fair Share for Our Mineral Resources? – by Ramsey Hart (MiningWatch Canada – December 12, 2013)

http://www.miningwatch.ca/

An open letter To Bonnie Lysyk, Auditor General for Ontario

Bonnie Lysyk, Auditor General for Ontario

20 Dundas Street West, Suite 1530
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2C2
December 12, 2013

Dear Ms. Lysyk,

On behalf of MiningWatch Canada, please allow me to welcome you to Ontario and congratulate you on your appointment as the Auditor General for our province.Having come from Saskatchewan you are undoubtedly no stranger to mining and the
revenues the extraction of non-renewable resources can contribute to a provincial budget. As you learn more about Ontario, you may be surprised to learn that relative to Saskatchewan, Ontario has very poor system in place for recouping a fair share of the value of publicly owned minerals extracted by private mining companies.

While Saskatchewan retains 7% to 8 % percent of the value of uranium and potash in mining taxes, Ontario retains les than 2% of the value of minerals under the Mining Tax.

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Russian billionaire buys copper producer Mercator Minerals Ltd to enter Canadian market – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 13, 2013)

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

For more than two years, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov wanted to launch an initial public offering in Toronto for his junior mining vehicle Intergeo MMC Ltd.

The plan failed because of rough capital market conditions. So Intergeo developed a new strategy: buying its way onto the TSX instead.

On Thursday, the Russian firm announced a friendly merger with Mercator Minerals Ltd., a Canadian copper miner with strong growth prospects but major balance sheet concerns in the short term. Mr. Prokhorov’s ONEXIM Group will make a US$100-million investment in the new entity (to be called Intergeo Mining Ltd.), including a bridge loan to Mercator that stabilizes the company.

“Over the last six to nine months, we have been looking at what is possible from an acquisition point of view,” Intergeo chief executive John Lill said in an interview. “We eventually thought that Mercator was quite a good fit for us and very complementary to our assets.”

The transaction did not come out of nowhere; there have been rumours for years that Intergeo wanted a Toronto listing and access to Canada’s capital markets.

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Now is the time to be focusing on exploration – McEwen – by (Mineweb.com – December 13, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

In an interview with Tekoa Da Silva, McEwen Mining CEO, Rob McEwen, discusses the current state of the market and how one should be approaching it.

BULLMARKETTHINKING.COM – During a time of continued stagnation in both share prices and sentiment in the mining sector, Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner of McEwen Mining, was kind enough to share a few comments.

Of particular interest to investors, Rob noted that the next move higher for the sector will likely be driven by a combination of rising gold prices, combined with new discoveries. The mantra of “growth for growth’s sake” is still alive according to Rob, but the companies who implement “big data” within their operations will likely generate better returns for investors going forward.

Here is his full interview commentary with Bull Market Thinking’s Tekoa Da Silva:

Tekoa Da Silva: Rob, I remember during the summer months the team there at McEwen Mining began adding language into company statements which basically read, “We’re looking to put together smart deals with other companies and if you’ve got something in mind, give us a call.”

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Canada heading for energy ‘gridlock,’ group warns – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2013)

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 — Canada is heading for a gridlock in energy development that will rob the country of future wealth unless it can solve vexing environmental and aboriginal conflicts, a blue-ribbon group including senior Calgary business people warns in a new report.

Concerned about growing conflict over resource development, 21 high-profile leaders from business, environmental organizations and First Nations met over the course of a year and concluded there is an urgent need for detente in the country’s heated debate over resource development.

And they urged that new approaches be found that would offer greater benefits for aboriginal communities and assure Canadians that industry is addressing key environmental concerns.

Bitter differences are “leading us towards energy resource development gridlock,” the group said in a paper that was distributed to industry and government officials and other national leaders on Thursday.

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Ottawa to designate crude oil as highly dangerous – Grant Robertson and Jacquie McNish (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2013)

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.

The federal government will, for the first time, designate crude oil a highly dangerous substance and introduce tougher safety and testing measures for shipping oil by rail, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has told The Globe and Mail.

The fundamental shift, in response to mounting concerns about crude safety, comes after a Globe investigation detailed how the oil that exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Que., last summer was far more dangerous than regulators and shippers considered. The investigation found that numerous warning signs about the volatility, corrosiveness and content of the crude were ignored before the disaster.

Until now, the government considered crude flammable, but not highly explosive. However, massive fireballs erupted in Lac-Mégantic on July 6 after a train carrying 72 tankers of crude oil derailed, killing 47 people and levelling much of the downtown. It is the worst railway disaster in Canadian history.

Ms. Raitt said on Thursday there is a clear need for higher safety standards to deal with the massive growth in oil being shipped by rail through cities and towns.

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Environmentalists for a foreign agenda – by Lawrence Solomon (National Post – December 13, 2013)

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

Canadians have no clue when the exhortations coming from Sierra Club, Greenpeace or the David Suzuki Foundation are financed by U.S. interests

We don’t allow foreigners to vote in our political campaigns for the obvious reason that our political leaders should court, and be accountable to, Canadians alone. We don’t allow foreigners to donate to political parties for a similar reason – we don’t want our politics to be unduly influenced by a foreign agenda. But we do allow foreigners to pursue their agenda in another way – by funding willing Canadian NGOs to make their case for them. Is this funding desirable in a free and democratic nation and if not, are there any remedies?

These questions have become acute due to the investigative work of Vivian Krause, an independent researcher whose articles on this page have in voluminous detail exposed the extent to which U.S. foundations fund activities in Canada, most notably to influence Canadians and Canadian policy over our tar sands, the chief target of global warming activists. Without some $100-million that U.S. foundations have spent swaying us to their point of view, tar sands development and the shipment of tar sands oil would be far less contentious a public issue.

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Cutifani vows to restore Anglo American’s iconic status – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – December 12, 2013)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani, who this week charted the company’s progress and pathway forward, has vowed to restore its iconic status.

“Anglo American in my 37 years in this industry has been an icon. We intend to put it right back up there,” he said in a media conference call from London.

On Thursday, the the day of the company’s major investor update, Anglo American opened at a higher £13.08 a share on the London Stock Exchange, after investment banker Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce set a “sector outperform” rating on the shares the day before and investment management company Sanford C Bernstein reiterated the “outperform” rating the next day, American Banking & Market News reported.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank last week reiterated a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note to investors, Analyst RN reported. Hosting a presentation to update investors on the London- and Johannesburg-listed company’s strategy, Cutifani said he knew of no other mining major that was in the process of doubling its earnings before interest and taxation (Ebit).

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Grits would offer guarantees to jumpstart Ring: Trudeau – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – December 13, 2013)

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

A Liberal federal government would play a key role in helping Ontario develop the Ring of Fire by providing matching funds or loan guarantees similar to those offered in the Upper Churchill to develop infrastructure, says Justin Trudeau.

The Ring of Fire is a tremendous resource not just for Northern Ontario, but for the entire country, said the Liberal Party leader during a visit Thursday to Shkagamik-Kwe Health Centre.

“The federal government needs to be part of the infrastructure projects that are going to unlock this great potential,” Trudeau told reporters after a tour of the aboriginal health centre where a chorus of three-year-olds sang to him in Ojibwe.

When asked what he thought about the battle of words between Ottawa and Ontario over who should do what to develop the chromite deposits, Trudeau said too much of politics is focused on finger-pointing.
”People need to sit down together and try to figure out the way to move forward that will be of benefit economically but also for communities, for our first peoples and for the long-term sustainability of our environment as well.”

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NEWS RELEASE: Wallbridge Announces Milling Arrangement for Broken Hammer

Toronto, Ontario — December 12, 2013 – Wallbridge Mining Company Limited (TSX: WM, FWB: WC7) (“Wallbridge”) today announced that it has signed a binding term sheet, (the “Term Sheet”) with Northern Sun Mining Corp. (formerly Liberty Mines Inc.) (TSX: NSC) (“Northern Sun”) for the custom milling of its Broken Hammer ore at Northern Sun’s Redstone concentrator in Timmins, Ontario. The Term Sheet is subject to, among other things, a Definitive Agreement to be entered into on or before February 7, 2014.

“We are excited to have completed another important step towards the development of the Broken Hammer deposit. Most permits are in place and negotiations with copper smelters and mining contractors are going well. Once these other facets of the project are in place, which is expected to be in early 2014, a production decision will be made to start construction in March 2014 with the expectation of ore delivery in May 2014, immediately after the half-load restrictions in Northern Ontario are lifted,” Marz Kord, President and CEO of Wallbridge stated, “At today’s metal prices we expect the project to proceed in late Q1 2014 and start generating cashflow in Q2-2014, that Wallbridge can put towards exploration opportunities at Broken Hammer and elsewhere in Sudbury”.

The securing of a satisfactory milling and processing contract for the Broken Hammer ore was a critical path item in determining the schedule for the project. Discussions with local milling facilities in Sudbury did not result in a contract being finalized and as a result Wallbridge explored other processing options, including, but not limited to, the possibility of processing the ore at Northern Sun’s Redstone Mill in Timmins, Ontario.

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Time for this political advisor to Butt out – by Rolly Ethier (Inside Bellville.com – November 14, 2013)

http://www.insidebelleville.com/bellevilleregion/

Central Hastings News – It wasn’t just coincidence that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau suddenly came out recently and blamed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the U.S. refusal to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. According to Trudeau, all Harper had to do to sanction the pipeline was to simply become a far-left liberal ideologue like himself by approving a carbon tax, something even the Americans haven’t yet done.

Of course, Trudeau also claimed his main objective is to protect the middle class but he also insists that taxing everyone is the right thing to do.

It wasn’t too surprising to understand where Trudeau is coming from by pushing for still another environmental hit to be imposed on the taxpayers. The carbon tax initiative comes shortly after the Trudeau camp’s selection of Gerald Butts as one of his key advisors. Butts, known as Butthead by his many critics, was the Principal Secretary to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty prior to getting a call from the Trudeau people. He also has his fingerprints all over the Green Energy fiasco and other boondoggles by the provincial Liberals.

So Butts helped to economically destroy one province and now he has his sights on bigger things like the entire country’s economy so we all can become a financial basket case just like the Obama administration.

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Black Hills are lined with gold – by Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – December 2013)

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

Historic U.S. gold belt offers new opportunities for Canadian miners

With a name like “Holy Terror,” one can only speculate what the founders of this mine in The Black Hills of South Dakota were thinking when they named it in the late 1890s?

Even to this day, visitors to the Keystone area of the historic mining communities in the famed Black Hills still wonder where the name came from and why was the mine tagged with such a menacing monicker?

Sketchy historical documents and old wives’ tales* spell out some of the myths behind the name but nevertheless, the mine is real and the name lives on as a legally registered claim with the U.S. Bureau of Mines.

The Holy Terror Mine is located in the Keystone Mining District of the Black Hills, about 35 km southwest of Rapid City and is one of no fewer than a dozen high-grade mines that formed a chain along the historical Keystone gold belt. Mining in the Keystone district dates back to 1874, with the most notable deposit being the famous Homestake Mine which produced nearly 40 million ounces of gold, making it the richest, deepest and most successful gold mine in U.S. history.

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Cross-border miners are great neighbours – by Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – December 2013)

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

Canada and U.S. relations is a topic that’s usual pretty boring because rarely does anything of interest come from this long and humdrum relationship. In fact, not since the War of 1812 and the Americans’ failed invasion of our country has there been anything remotely close to either country being a real ‘threat’ to the other.

Sure there’s the proposed Keystone pipeline that is viewed by some Americans as a potential threat to their lands along its route, and then there’s our gasoline that some major retailers have boycotted because of its ‘mis-perceived’ high lead content, but overall, nothing done or produced on either side of the border is seriously worth worrying about.

Unlike too many other parts of the world where neighbours are blowing each other to bits, the relationship between Canada and the United States is friendly with an “open-for-business” attitude. Sure, both countries have their own peculiari¬ties when it comes to people, permits and properties but for the most part, mining is mining on both sides of the border.

Canada and the U.S. contain some of the more prolific mines found anywhere on earth and thanks to both countries practicing open-door policies, mining companies are pretty much free to come and go as they please.

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