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Jim O’Neill interview: Why the Mints come after the Brics – by Sophie McBain (NewStatesman – January 23, 2914)

http://www.newstatesman.com/

The economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the term “Bric countries” (referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China), now says that the term is now tired, and argues that immigration should be widely accepted as a good thing.

Thirteen years ago, Jim O’Neill, a chief economist at Goldman Sachs, coined the term “Brics” to describe the four countries he predicted would be among the next global economic giants: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The acronym caught on, to an extent that O’Neill describes as “flattering” – but he also feels “irritated” by having to defend his theory.

“Someone has just written a book called Broken Brics, and I’m just like, yawn,” he says, collapsing into his seat with feigned exhaustion. “If I dreamt it up again today, I’d probably just call it ‘C’,” he adds, perking up. “China’s one and a half times bigger than the rest of them put together.”

But O’Neill, now 56, is moving on, from both banking and the Brics. He left his role as chairman of Goldman Sachs in April 2013 after 18 years of working at the investment bank. Deciding that he couldn’t better his former role, he resolved to do something different. I’m meeting him at a private members’ club in central London to discuss his newest acronym, Mint, and the accompanying Radio 4 series.

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BRICs Creator O’Neill Wowed by New Lula’s Success: Mexico Credit – by Nacha Cattan (Bloomberg News – December 18, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Jim O’Neill has been tracking economic reform initiatives in countries across the world during his 33-year career on Wall Street. Only a few of them, he said, rank higher than what Mexico achieved this year.

“I can’t think of many other countries that have had a period of such deep reforms,” said O’Neill, who coined the term BRICs while serving as a top Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist in 2001, correctly predicting a surge in growth for Brazil, Russia, India and China. “Markets are only just really starting to give Mexico any credibility now that the energy reform is going through.”

President Enrique Pena Nieto shepherded through at least 10 constitutional amendments in his first year in office, including measures to open Mexico’s oil industry to private investment for the first time in 75 years. He is slated to enact as soon as this week the new drilling rules, which are aimed at luring oil majors from Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) to Chevron Corp. (CVX), after a majority of states ratified the changes adopted by the national congress.

O’Neill estimates the reforms will boost Mexico’s long-term economic growth to 5 percent from the current 3 percent, helping trigger a bond rally that will top gains in other emerging markets next year. Barclays Plc predicts the reforms will spark investor demand for bonds in coming weeks, with yields on longer-term securities falling about 0.25 percentage point by year-end.

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Two [resource] roads too late? – by Russel Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – February/March 2014)

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

Sorry, but I find it hard to get excited by the recent news that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has broken ceremonial ground on a new all-weather highway from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk.

As much as I favour any infrastructure work the Feds are willing to pay for, I have to question why a 140-km gravel highway (that’s been on the books since the Diefenbaker years in the 1960s) now gets a push and will still be on the books until it’s scheduled to be completed in 2018?

Sure, the PMO’s office says, “The link that hooks up to the Dempster Highway running through the Yukon is expected to deliver many economic benefits and save northerners hundreds of dollars a year in shipping costs.”

BUT, and that’s a big ‘but,’ is saving northerners hundreds of dollars worth it because I can think of a number of other highway projects that would not only save money but moreover, help make it?

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Mechanized mining could revive output in South Africa – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – February 24, 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.

WESTONARIA, SOUTH AFRICA — With a great clanking and an occasional dripping of water, the dimly lit elevator cage gathers speed and then plunges 2.4 kilometres below the earth’s surface in an ear-popping four minutes.

It’s one of the biggest and fastest vertical drops in the world, and it opens up an era of mechanized mining that could be the saviour of South Africa’s struggling gold and platinum sectors.

South Deep, once the property of Barrick Gold Corp. and now owned by Gold Fields Ltd., has been the future of South African mining for a long time – perhaps too long, according to analysts who question its persistent delays.

With more than $4-billion (U.S.) invested in it so far, South Deep boasts a huge reserve of 40 million ounces that could keep it in operation for 60 years or more, with its drills blasting up to three kilometres underground. It has been long viewed as the last great gold mine in South Africa, and potentially one of the lowest-cost producers in the world.

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Martu Rangers Help Bring Australia’s Desert to Life for Newmont – by Joe Kirschke (Engineering and Mining Journal – February 20, 2014)

http://www.e-mj.com/

In the immense expanse of the Australian Central Western Desert that engulfs Newmont Mining Corp.’s Jundee complex in the Yandal goldfield 1,100 km northeast of Perth, water, food and people are often equally scarce.

In a good year, the dry, unicolor land will absorb 200 milliliters of rainfall. The native Martu people, however, have long since adapted: with one of the world’s oldest living cultures—dating back 40,000 years—the aboriginals are exceptional at spotting, tracking and catching elusive goanna lizards and bush turkeys—both on foot and by setting fires.

Such skills have not gone unnoticed. Through Australia’s Central Desert Native Title Services (CDNTS), Newmont is now tapping it for a landmark Martu Ranger land management program. It’s an endeavor exemplifying mining-sector Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at its best: While generating indigenous employment, the initiative provides for the environment alongside a cultural awareness eagerly promoted by a government.

In wake of a 2011 pilot program, a fee-for-service compliance contract has since evolved into a large-scale biodiversity restoration project that is drawing new partner interest, while increasing Martu employment levels three-fold.

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UPDATE 2-Indonesia to ease export tax, 1st rollback of mining rules – by Wilda Asmarini and Yayat Supriatna (Reuters India – February 24, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Indonesia will ease a controversial tax on mineral concentrate exports for firms that build smelters in the country, in the first rollback of new rules that have caused its mining industry to grind to a halt.

The move is a potential victory for U.S. mining giants Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining Corp . A senior government official said Freeport would resume exports of copper concentrate in the “near future”.

Around $500 million a month in ore and concentrate exports have stopped since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in January imposed mining rules, which included the progressive tax and a mineral ore export ban, to force companies to build smelters and process raw materials in Indonesia.

“The export tax can be changed. For those who have seriously committed to building smelters, we will ease it,” said Sukhyar, director general of coal and minerals for the mines ministry. “The export tax can be lowered or maybe eliminated to zero percent.”

By contrast, Indonesian government officials have said over the last few weeks that Jakarta would not back down from the export tax or any of the mining regulations passed last month.

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Don’t believe the China hype: Time to engage with Beijing – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – February 24, 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.

When Xi Jinping made his first trip abroad as China’s President last year, he chose Africa as his destination. His pledge to aid the continent’s development with “no political strings attached” was seen by many in the West as another sign of China’s willingness to look past corruption, rights abuses and environmental degradation in its quest to secure natural resources.

Others saw not the win-win relationship Mr. Xi described on his trip but a form of neo-colonialism. “China takes from us primary goods and sells us manufactured ones,” Nigerian Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi wrote in the Financial Times. “China is a major contributor to the deindustrialization of Africa and thus African underdevelopment.”

Last week, Mr. Sanusi was ousted by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan after alleging that billions of dollars in oil revenue owed to the government were missing. His dismissal fuelled allegations of corruption at the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

Mr. Sanusi’s exit has also contributed to unease that China, whose investments in Nigeria are growing, is buying the allegiance of shady regimes by promising unconditional political and financial support in exchange for raw resources.

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Canada, U.S., Mexico are now fierce energy rivals – by Barrie McKenna (Globe and Mail – February 24, 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.

OTTAWA — The head of Mexico’s state-owned oil company envisions a NAFTA-style energy partnership with Canada and the United States.

Pemex chief executive officer Emilio Lozoya Austin isn’t the first person to muse about greater continental energy integration through such policies as resource pooling and harmonized regulations. But it’s a new energy world in 2014, two decades after the landmark North American free-trade agreement was struck.

The three countries are now fierce rivals in a North American energy landscape that has been dramatically reshaped by imminent U.S. energy self-sufficiency. Parochialism risks trumping integration, and common ground is increasingly hard to find.

There were troubling signs as Prime Minister Stephen Harper met his fellow NAFTA leaders in Mexico last week that the “three amigos” are drifting farther apart, and the schism is particularly apparent in energy.

In their post-summit statement, the leaders committed to a meeting of energy ministers later this year to vaguely discuss “opportunities to promote common strategies” in areas such as trade, infrastructure and unconventional energy.

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BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie: Economy is sound – by Peter Ker (The Age – February 24, 2014)

http://www.theage.com.au/

BHP Billiton boss Andrew Mackenzie says he is optimistic about Australia’s economic prospects, despite the departure of the car makers and last week’s closure of the Alcoa smelter at Point Henry.

But Mr Mackenzie told Channel Nine’s Financial Review Sunday program the swath of job losses in manufacturing highlighted the importance of the nation uniting behind a single productivity agenda.

Mr Mackenzie has been particularly upbeat about the future of the Australian economy since taking over as chief executive in May, and his mantra that Australia still has ”everything to play for” has often been at odds with the gloomy prognoses of federal governments.

Mr Mackenzie has regularly urged Australia to help itself by reforming industrial relations, taxes and its productivity performance, and said the high-profile corporate closures were a reminder of that.

”To be pro-Australia for a moment I wish they hadn’t happened … but I have a global perspective, I see what happens elsewhere in the world and I still think Australia has an awful lot going for it,” he said.

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For embattled Bre-X lawyer Joe Groia, the trial isn’t over – by Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – February 15, 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.

TORONTO — Joe Groia, perhaps the best-known securities lawyer on Bay Street, enjoys a maverick reputation he owes largely to his biggest case: His successful defence of John Felderhof, the geologist at the centre of the Bre-X gold fraud that rocked Bay Street in the 1990s.

The Bre-X affair has long since faded into history – but not for Mr. Groia. The case that defined his career remains very much a present-day preoccupation.

Wearing a jacket and tie with faded jeans and gesticulating over a half-plate of orecchiette at Oro – a downtown Toronto Italian restaurant where he had a party after his wedding 25 years ago – he tells of how his link to the Bre-X saga began, recalling a promise he made to Mr. Felderhof that things would turn out all right.

Back in 1997, the geologist was under a cloud of suspicion after faked gold-drilling results from Indonesia caused stock in his company, Bre-X Minerals Ltd., to crater, costing investors billions. The Ontario Securities Commission, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the RCMP and the FBI were all on the case.

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Exclusive: Small miners set to dust off drill rigs in 2014 – Reuters survey – by Allison Martell and Euan Rocha Reuters U.K. – February 24, 2014)

http://uk.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – A large majority of the small Canadian-listed mining companies that help drive global mineral exploration expect to drill this year after a grim period of hibernation for many cash-strapped explorers, according to a Reuters survey.

The results of the survey of more than 60 mining executives are one of the first clear indications of a turning point in sentiment among so-called junior miners. Although money has begun to trickle back, the cost of drilling is down and the price of gold is up from last year’s painful lows, hopes for the sector have been muted at best.

More than three quarters of the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture-listed miners and explorers that participated in the survey said they expected to have a drilling program at some point in the coming 12 months, while fewer than six in 10 said they had drilled in the previous 12 months.

“This is the best time to drill, the drilling contractors are very cheap,” said George Topping, chief executive of Venture-listed explorer Wolfden Resources Corp (WLF.V). Wolfden is one of the hundreds of small explorers that make Canada a centre of global mining finance. With no revenues, these companies exist to drill, or typically hire specialised contractors to do the job in Canada and around the world.

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Robert Redford: National ecological treasure in danger – by Robert Redford (U.S.A. Today – February 20, 2014)

http://www.usatoday.com/

I, along with many others, have been working for years to protect Bristol Bay, Alaska, from large-scale mining. This spectacular, unspoiled landscape is home to the largest wild salmon fishery in the world. Every year tens of millions of salmon return to Bristol Bay to feed thriving commercial and sports fishing industries, as well as brown bears, whales, bald eagles and wolves. And they’re the centerpiece of sustenance and culture for Alaska Natives who have lived there for thousands of years.

Incredibly, a Canadian-based mining company wants to build a vast open-pit gold and copper mine, one of the largest in the world, in the heart of this national treasure. The operation, known as Pebble Mine, would threaten the ecosystem and salmon – the entire lifeblood of the region.

That’s why it has been crystal clear to so many of us that this misguided scheme must be stopped. And now the federal Environmental Protection Agency has provided what should be the definitive evidence that the Pebble Mine would be a disaster.

In a final assessment of the Bristol Bay watershed that took three years of extensive scientific research, peer review and public comment to produce, the agency last month found the following:

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Vale’s Totten Mine opens after three-year delay – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – Feb 21, 2014)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

It started as a hole in the ground, but after a $760-million investment, Vale’s Totten Mine had its official opening Friday.

Dignitaries from around the province, including Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, Sudbury Mayor Marianne Matichuk, and Michael Gravelle, the province’s minister of Northern Develoment and Mines, gathered around the ceremonial ribbon to welcome Vale’s sixth mine in the Sudbury region, and its first to open in nearly 40 years.

Subury MPP Rick Bartolucci, Ontario’s former minister of Northern Development and Mines, had was not present at the ceremony due to a prior commitment. “The 200 jobs that are being created as a result of the Totten Mine will support families and will fuel the economy of this region,” Wynne said at the grand opening.

The premier said the provincial government has an important role to play in developments like the Totten Mine by creating a regulatory environment that encourages businesses to invest and prosper.

The mine was supposed to open in 2011, but a number of factors, including the global economic crisis in 2008 and 2009, slowed Vale’s progress.

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Reader’s view: Copper-nickel mining devastated Sudbury and its surroundings – by Roberta Plewa (Duluth News Tribune – February 23, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Regarding the copper-nickel mining issue, I want to mention a bit of history I have witnessed.

In the 1940s, my father worked for the railroad, entitling families free train travel. My aunt’s family lived in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Trains traveled circuitous routes then so we passed through Sudbury, Ontario. We were aware of mining there but unconcerned. In 1965 my family and I traveled that route to visit. On the way we decided to see the “big nickel.” When we reached the hilltop I looked around and observed a nightmare. It was black as far as one could see. Nothing but black. That was the legacy of copper-nickel mining.

The publicity for and against the Range project set me to thinking. My husband Googled the words “Earth/Sudbury” and retrieved significant information. Today “Greater Sudbury,” as it is called because of its expansion, has grown and prospered due to diversification. However, the original Sudbury, in spite of 50 years of reclamation efforts, still remains devastated.

The Chamber of Commerce of Sudbury acknowledges the devastation of the past but promotes the positive surrounding area. There is no mention of outcome for the watersheds that ultimately go to Lake Huron by way of the rivers and streams. There is no mention of health issues from breathing the black dust or birth defects.

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Vale ‘Not in Hurry’ in Over Canada Glencore Negotiations – by Liezel Hill and Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – February 22, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Vale SA (VALE5), the world’s second-biggest nickel producer, said it’s not in a rush to reach an agreement with Glencore Xstrata Plc to combine operations in Canada’s Sudbury basin.

“We are studying and we are talking but we are not in a hurry,” Peter Poppinga, Vale’s head for base metals, said yesterday in an interview.

Vale and Glencore, the world’s third-largest refined nickel producer, last year initiated talks on jointly operating mines, mills and smelters in the Sudbury area, about 400kilometers (250 miles) north of Toronto, Poppinga said in November. Vale Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira told reporters on Dec. 18 his Rio de Janeiro-based company expected to make a decision on a possible combination in the first quarter.

Poppinga said yesterday he didn’t expect an agreement “early this year,” and declined to comment further on the talks. Glencore declined to comment on the state of talks with Vale in an e-mail statement.

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