Republic of Mining

Mining sector digs in for growth – by Derek Sankey (Vancouver Province – March 3, 2014)

March 3, 2014

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

Oilsands forecast to remain strong

CALGARY HERALD – Canada’s mining sector is on the cusp of growth in new jobs fuelled by several projects set to move ahead after struggling through broadly weaker commodity prices and a recent “down cycle,” say industry officials.

Oilsands mining has remained strong – and forecast to remain so – while base and precious metals rebound and new mines are coming on stream, following some workforce reductions in the last few years.

“There are a number of new mines currently in the pipeline that have a tremendous opportunity to gain some of those jobs back,” says Ryan Montpellier, executive director of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR). “We’ve seen new employment in our north, in coal (and) there is some potential for new diamond mines,” he adds.

“There is a lot of potential in the industry today.” Year-over-year job growth increased by 11,000 jobs from 2011 to 2012, while the total number of mining jobs, including drilling and exploration, was 418,000 in 2012, according to Natural Resources Canada data.

Mining convention sees brighter prospects ahead – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – March 3, 2014)

March 3, 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.

Thousands of junior mining companies are prospecting for cash so they can keep up the hunt for new deposits amid the downturn in commodity prices. The miners will be doing their best to attract investors at the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto this week.

A swarm of 25,000-plus miners, financiers and lawyers from more than 125 countries are expected to attend the four-day conference, the world’s largest mining gathering, which started on Sunday.

Funding for miners was scarce last year and the junior firms, which are responsible for the majority of new discoveries, are down to skeleton crews and desperate for investment.

“I have never been through anything like 2013. There were times when there was almost no hope,” said Richard Spencer, who has more than 20 years of experience exploring for minerals and is the chief executive of Toronto-based uranium miner U3O8 Corp.

Goldcorp-Osisko battle heats up in Quebec as court case begins Monday – by Peter Koven (National Post – March 2, 2014)

March 3, 2014

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

The takeover battle between Goldcorp Inc. and Osisko Mining Corp. is heating up. But not for reasons that have anything to with the terms of the actual bid.

The two sides are set to face off in the Quebec Superior Court this week over Osisko’s claim that Goldcorp misused confidential information when it launched the $2.6-billion hostile offer in January.

The court case, which begins Monday in Montreal, centres on whether the two companies had a verbal standstill agreement in place when Osisko disclosed private data in a meeting last year. The trial is set to last for three days and both sides expressed confidence they will win. Not surprisingly, Goldcorp dismissed the lawsuit as a stalling tactic while Osisko said it will shed light on nefarious actions by Goldcorp.

Outside of court, a more complicated battle is brewing as both sides talk up their Quebec credentials in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the province. Osisko is the largest Quebec-based mining company and owns the giant Canadian Malartic mine in the province. Goldcorp, based in Vancouver, plans to produce first gold from its US$1.8-billion Eleonore mine in Quebec later this year.

Gold Miners See Looming Output Drop After Cut in Mine Spending – by Liezel Hill (Bloomberg News – March 03, 2014)

March 3, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

The biggest gold producers say global output will fall short of expectations and is poised to decline after the worst price slump in three decades spurred them to cut spending and revise mining plans.

Barrick Gold Corp., Goldcorp Inc. and Newmont Mining Corp., the three biggest producers by market value, say the industry has changed after gold plunged 28 percent last year. The decline forced miners to take at least $30 billion of writedowns.

“The industry has gotten more disciplined,” Barrick Chief Executive Officer Jamie Sokalsky said in a Feb. 24 interview. “We are in an inflection point now where I think ultimately gold production in the industry could start to decline more than people think.”

Sokalsky said lower mine output may support gold prices. Demand for physical metal is growing in China, according to Sean Boyd, the CEO of Canada’s Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. Central banks, net purchasers for four straight years, will keep buying, he said in an interview. The outlook for gold will be on the minds of many at the annual Prospectors & Developers Associated of Canada convention which began yesterday in Toronto.

Gold fell 0.4 percent to $1,326.39 an ounce on Feb. 28 in London. After posting its biggest annual loss in 32 years, the metal is up 10 percent in 2014.

NEWS RELEASE: Outlining Cobalt’s Colourful Mining History

March 3, 2014

Click here for the prospector’s colouring book: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://campersbest.com/PresidentsSuites/images/site/documents/Livre+a+colorier+Web.pdf

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – March 2, 2014) – In honour of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada 2014 conference, The Prospectors’ House in Haileybury, Ontario is launching its Colouring Book, a Prospectors’ Game, and a Head Frame Memory Game.

The colouring book and games are being launched in recognition of the many prospectors who responded to the discovery of silver in Cobalt in 1903. Thirty well-known prospectors, influenced by Cobalt’s the silver rush are featured. Their work, and the wealth they generated from the Cobalt Mining Camp, led to the development of the mining industry across the North, and furthered mining across Canada and around the world.

NEWS RELEASE: Alberta Top Canadian Jurisdiction in Annual Global Mining Survey, Quebec Sinking Fast

March 3, 2014

For the full report, click here: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/mining-survey-2013.pdf

CALGARY, ALBERTA–(Marketwired – March 3, 2014) – Alberta remains the most attractive jurisdiction for mining investment in Canada, according to the annual global survey of mining executives released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

For the second consecutive year, Alberta ranked first in Canada and third worldwide in the survey, which is based on input from 690 mineral exploration and development company executives. This year’s survey spotlighted 112 jurisdictions worldwide.

“Miners praise Alberta for its transparent and productive approach to mining policy. The province offers competitive taxation regimes, sound legal systems, and relatively low uncertainty around land claims. That’s what miners look for,” said Kenneth Green, Fraser Institute senior director of energy and natural resources and director of the Survey of Mining Companies 2013.

Three Canadian jurisdictions-Alberta (3), New Brunswick (7), and Newfoundland and Labrador (9)-ranked in the top 10 worldwide, followed by Saskatchewan (12), Yukon (19), Quebec (21), Manitoba (26), Ontario (28), Nova Scotia (29), British Columbia (32), Nunavut (44), and the Northwest Territories (47).

Canadian T.V. Ignores Ontario’s Rich Mining History – by Stan Sudol (March 2, 2014)

November 27, 2019March 2, 2014

This column was also published on the Huffington Post – the “New York Times” of the web: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stan-sudol/ontario-mining_b_4885841.html

Klondike Versus Northern Ontario

For crying out loud, I continue to be astonished with our collective Canadian obsession over the Klondike Gold Rush while northern Ontario’s rich and vibrant mining history is completely ignored by the Toronto media establishment, especially the CBC.

Discovery Channel’s recent six-hour mini-series on the Klondike – vaguely based on Charlotte Gray’s book, “Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike – once again highlighted this glaring snub.

Unfairly, the Klondike did have the benefit of terrific public relations due to famous writers like Jack London, Robert W. Service and Pierre Berton, but I still don’t understand how this brief mining boom continues to dominate the “historical oxygen” in our national psyche.

At its peak, the Klondike only lasted a few years – 1896-1899 – and produced about 12.5 million ounces of gold. And unlike the California gold rush that created one of the largest and richest states in the union, the entire Yukon Territory’s population today is about 36,000. Contrast that with booming Timmins with 45,000 hardy souls who have dug out of the ground about 68 million ounces and counting of the precious metal, since the Porcupine Gold rush of 1909.

It’s enough to make to make Benny Hollinger, Jack Wilson and Sandy MacIntyre – the founders of this extraordinary deposit – spin in their collective graves!

Before I continue, I will come clean with readers as I have a certain “bias” on this topic, being born and raised in Sudbury – the richest mining city in North America – whose mines have been producing nickel, copper and platinum group metals for over 130 years.

B.C. to impose new fees on mining industry – by Justine Hunter (Globe and Mail – February 28, 2014)

February 28, 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.

VICTORIA — The B.C. government is planning to impose new fees on the mining industry, saying the sector should bear the cost for better services. “It will give the ministry an opportunity to bring a few more resources in to improve our performance,” Mines Minister Bill Bennett told the legislature Thursday.

But the industry is calling the move “punitive” and warns it will undermine already-fragile small-scale mining companies.

Just two years ago, the B.C. Liberal government restored ministry resources for services such as permit approvals, at Mr. Bennett’s urging. He had argued that government service cuts had “starved” the “dirt ministries” – those governing mining, forests and oil and gas – to the point that economic growth was being choked.

Now, the province wants mining to pay for those restored services. But the opposition NDP said Thursday the changes are ill-timed.

In Europe, Dirty Coal Makes a Comeback – by Stefan Nicola and Ladka Bauerova (Bloomberg News – February 28, 2014)

February 28, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

From the baroque castle where Beethoven premièred his Eroica symphony two centuries ago, Vladimír Buřt gazes down on giant excavators that eat into the ground around the clock, loading brown coal onto conveyor belts that fill waiting railroad cars. “There used to be a lake where we’d go swimming every day,” says Buřt, the deputy mayor of Horní Jiřetín, a 750-year-old village in the Czech Republic that could be destroyed if the coal mine is allowed to expand. “The Communists started this devastation, and this government wants to finish it.”

Horní Jiřetín and other small villages along Europe’s mining belt may soon succumb to the continent’s quest for cheaper electricity. Alarmed that energy prices in Europe are about double what they are in the U.S., governments in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany are green-lighting the expansion of mines that produce lignite, a moist, brown coal used to fuel power plants.

While lignite is plentiful and cheap, it packs less energy and releases more greenhouse gases than hard coal. The dirty coal’s resurgence runs counter to European Union efforts to limit emissions and promote cleaner energy. “It’s absurd,” says Petra Roesch, mayor of Proschim, a 700-year-old German village that could be entirely leveled if authorities in the state of Brandenburg allow the expansion of a lignite mine owned by the Vattenfall power utility. “Germany wants to transition toward renewable energy, and we’re being deprived of our land.”

Noront Resources pursues Ring of Fire despite setbacks – by Jonathan Migneault (Northern Ontario Business – February 28, 2014)

February 28, 2014

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

If all goes to plan, Noront Resources could begin work on its Eagle’s Nest project in the Ring of Fire by 2017, said the Paul Parisotto, the company’s chairman and director.

Despite a number of obstacles that have brought development of the Ring of Fire to a near halt, Parisotto said he remains optimistic about his company’s stake.

“We’re very committed to building this mine as soon as we possibly can,” Parisotto said Thursday, at a forum organized by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce to coincide with a new report critical delays in the Ring of Fire.

“Things have moved slowly for a number of reasons,” Parisotto said. “That’s in the past. We are where we are today.” The Eagle’s Nest project includes nickel, copper and platinum group elements, and the company’s Blackbird Deposit contains high-grade chromite.

Noront has poured around $200 million into the Ring of Fire so far, where the company has its only mining properties.

Minnesota’s Worst Mining Disaster – by Angie Riebe (Mesabi Daily News – February 27, 2014)

February 28, 2014

http://www.grandrapidsmn.com/

Horrific history at Milford Mine

Feb. 5, 1924. A day of history for Minnesota. A day of heartache and heroism for young miner named Frank Hrvatin Jr. It was a day like most others at the Milford Mine, two miles north of Crosby in Crow Wing County.

Miners were laboring underground on the 175-foot and 135-foot levels of the 200-foot-deep manganese mine, owned by George H. Crosby. Frank Jr., and his dad, Frank Sr., were both hard at work that afternoon — the elder Hrvatin performing his duties as a blaster, the son laboring aside his veteran partner, Harry Hosford.

The miners had blasted an underground shaft near the adjacent Foley Lake, and Frank had just dumped ore down a transfer chute, when a sudden gust of wind hit him. It was rather strange, he thought.

But he had little time to consider it further, as rushing water appeared on the level below. “Look at the water, Harry!” Frank shouted to his partner. “Oh, my God! For God’s sake run!” replied Harry. “The whole lake has come in!” Harry’s observations proved correct. The boggy water from Foley Lake roared into the mine, filling it in no time to within 15 feet of the surface.

PDAC 2014: Glimmers of hope as mining industry gathers in Toronto (Reuters/National Post – February 28, 2014)

February 28, 2014

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

Mining companies will meet at the industry’s biggest conference next week under the darkest cloud in a decade, but a recent bounce in the price of gold and silver and a trickle of investment and acquisitions are starting to pierce the gloom.

The renewed optimism may set up a fierce competition for funds among small explorers who have woken from years of hibernation and now appear to be gang rushing a small, wary group of investors. A Reuters survey shows that a majority of the small, Canadian-listed miners that help drive global mineral exploration expect to drill this year.

The same companies appear to be counting on an influx of funds first. More than half of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture (TSX-V) miners and explorers that participated in the Reuters survey said they were “very likely” to seek financing in the coming 12 months. A majority also are at least somewhat likely to announce a “merger of equals”, often looking to tie up with a better-heeled rival.

The investment thaw so far is limited to bigger, cash-generating producers of metals and minerals who have embraced costs cuts and profits above all else, as well as a handful of smaller miners with high-quality, low-risk projects.

Ring of Fire miners want Ontario to start making decisions (CBC News Sudbury – February 28, 2014)

February 28, 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/sudbury/

Sudbury crowd told that southern Ontario needs to be sold on the Ring of Fire mining development

Two of the biggest players in the Ring of Fire say the province has to start making decisions to move the mining development forward.

Noront Resources CEO Paul Parisotto said, while he’d like to have his mine in the far north open by now, he’s not in a rush. “You’ll hear [Northern Development and Mines] Minister Gravelle say all the time: ‘We have to get it right.’ To me, that’s been code for, let’s move slowly and make sure things get done properly.”

That answer didn’t sit well with a frustrated Dick Destefano from the Sudbury Mining Supply and Service Association. “That’s the standard line we’ve been listening to for the past three years. You have fundamental differences.”

Those differences are largely about the road to be built into the Ring of Fire area. Noront would like it running East-West, while Cliffs Natural Resources wants it north-south.

Cliffs’ director of Furnace Technology, Matthew Cramer, said the companies aren’t fighting. But until the government decides, they can’t convince investors to put “real money” into these mines.

Infrastructure a burning issue in Ontario’s remote Ring of Fire – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – February 28, 2014)

February 28, 2014

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

In Ontario’s Far North, the mineral reserve dubbed the Ring of Fire has been hailed as one of the most promising mineral developments in the province in almost a century, with the largest deposit of chromite ever discovered in North America. This discovery has potential for decades, possibly a century, of chromite production, which could revitalise the North American stainless steel industry.

But the bustling region, where more than 20 companies hold claims, is located in the isolated McFaulds Lake area of the James Bay lowlands – more than 500 km from Thunder Bay – and needs infrastructure, most crucially transportation infrastructure, to turn it into Canada’s newest mining camp. It is estimated that the region needs about $2.25-billion in transportation and industrial infrastructure.

Transportation is seen as the number-one issue that could make or break the area’s potential and Maurice (Moe) Lavigne, the VP for exploration and development of TSX-V-listed KWG Resources, stresses that these chromite deposits will not progress to economic enterprises unless there is an efficient and affordable way out of the remote region.

Much of the debate around infrastructure has focused on which way the Ring of Fire should go – road or rail – and who should carry the cost of the infrastructure development and maintenance.

NAN Grand Chief – Mining Opportunities and First Nations – interviewed by Jame Murray (Netnewsledger.com – February 27, 2014)

February 28, 2014

http://www.netnewsledger.com/ THUNDER BAY – Nishnawbe-Aski Grand Chief Harvey Yesno is looking at the issue of mining and the opportunities for First Nations in Nishnwabe-Aski territory in Northwestern and Northern Ontario. The NAN Grand Chief is looking toward governments, both Canada and Ontario to step up and honour the treaty agreements. Grand Chief Yesno also makes …